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GROVER CLEVELAND: 

A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 



BY 
RICHARD WATSON GILDER 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1910 






Copyright, 1909, I&IO, by 
The Century Co. 



PiMislied October, 1910 



The letters of Mr. Cleveland 
are published with the 
permission of his Executors 



r\ A-:'7o*> !;• 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 



CLEVELAND 

Poem Read by Richard Watson Gilder at the 

Cleveland Memorial Meeting in 

Carnegie Hall, March 18. 1909. 

I. 

« 

He shrank from praise, this simple-hearted man — 
Therefore we praise him ! Yet, as he would wish, 
Chiefly our praise not for the things he did, 
But for his spirit in doing. Ah, great heart, 
And humble ! Great and simple heart I forgive 
The homage we may not withhold ! Strong soul ! 
Thou brave and faithful servant of the State, 
Who laboi'ed day and night in little things. 
No less than large, for the loved country's sake. 
With patient hand that plodded while others slept ! 
Who flung to the winds preferment and the future. 
Daring to put clear truth to the perilous test. 
Fearing no scathe if but the people gained, 
And_happiest far in sacrifice and loss. 
Yes, happiest he when, plain in all men's sight. 
He turned contemptuous from the lure of place, 
Spurning the laurel that should crown success 
Soiled by surrender and a perjured soul. 



II. 

The people ! Never once his faith was dimmed 
In them his countrymen ; ah, never once ; 
For if doubt shook him, 't was but a fleeting mood ; 
Though others wavered, never wavered he. 
Though madness, Hke a flood, swept o'er the land, 
This way, now that ; though love of pelf subdued 
The civic conscience, still he held his faith. 
Unfaltering, in man's true-heartedness. 
And in the final judgment of free men. 



III. 

Firm with the powerful, gentle with the weak, 

His was the sweetness of the strong ! His voice 

Took tenderness in speech with little folk, 

And he was pitiful of man and brute. 

So, for the struggle with high things of state, 

He strengthened his own heart with kindly deeds — 

His own heart strengthened for stern acts of power 

That, fashioned in the secret place of thought, 

And in the lonely and the silent shrine 

Of conscience, came momentous on the world : 

Built stronger the foundations of the State; 

Upheld the word of honor, no whit less 

'Twixt nation and nation than 'twixt man and man; 

Held righteousness the one law of the world. 

And higher set the hopes of all mankind. 

vi 



IV. 
Lonely the heart that listens to no voice 
Save that of Duty ; lonely he how oft 
When, turning from the smooth, advised path. 
He climbed the chill and solitary way ; 
Wondering that any wondered, when so clear 
The light that led — the light of perfect faith 
And passion for the right, that fire of heaven 
Wherein self dies, and only truth lives on ! 
Lonely how oft when, with the statesman's art, 
He waited for the fullness of the time. 
And wrought the good he willed by slow degrees, 
And in due order conquered wrong on wrong. 
Lonely how oft Avhen 'mid dark disesteem 
He moved straightforward to a longed-for goal, 
Doing each day the best he might, with vision 
Firm fixt above, kept pure by pure intent. 

V. 

Some souls are built to take the shocks of the world, 
To interpose against blind currents of fate, 
Or wrath, or ignorant purpose, a fixt will ; 
Against the bursting storm a front of calm ; 
As, when the Atlantic rages, some stern cliff 
Hurls back the tempest and the ponderous wave. 
So stood he firm when lesser wills were broken ; 
So he endured when others failed and fell ; 
Bearing, in silent suffering, the stress. 
The blame, the burden of the fateful day. 

vii 



VI. 

So single and so simple was his mind, 

So unperturbed by learned subtleties, 

And so devout of justice and the right — 

His thought, his act, held something of the prime ; 

The wide, sure vision of the ancient day 

Prophetic; even a touch of nature's force — 

Large, elemental, healing; builded well 

On the deep bases of humanity. 

VII. 

O strong oak riven ! O tower of defense 
Fallen ! O captain of the hosts struck down ' 
O cries of lamentation — turning swift 
To sounds of triumph and great victories ! 
For into the hands of one of humble soul 
Great trust was laid, and he that trust fulfilled. 
So he who died accomjilished mighty deeds, 
And he who fought has won the infinite peace. 
And sleeps enshrined in his own people's hearts, 
And in the praise of nations and the world, 
And rests immortal among the immortal Great. 



viu 



y 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

" One Who Did his Best " S 

My First Talk with the President— The Message 

that Defeated Him 7 

TarifT Reformers Advise against the Message .... 13 

Copyright and Free Art 15 

Disinterested Public Servants 17 

How Cleveland Felt about his First Administration . 19 

Between the Two Presidential Terms 23 

Condition of Accepting Nomination 28 

Throwing Away the Presidency 31 

What He Said to Himself at Albany 35 

The Cleveland Motto 37 

Cleveland's Writing 41 

Money No Temptation 46 

A Racy Talker 49 

A Friendship with Joe Jefferson 53 

On the Train for Gray Gables 65 

Letters about Fishing, and Other Things 67 

Mr. Cleveland Gives Important Advice 78 

" One Night at Marion " 81 

A Small Caller 86 

iz 



X CONTENTS 

PAGK 

The "Children's Hour" at the White House .... 90 
Cleveland's Partisanship and his Independence ... 92 

The Dinner at the Victoria Hotel 96 

The Night before his Last Election 100 

Not Wishing to Do Bold Things 105 

Between his Second Election and Inauguration . . . 107 

The Second Inauguration 108 

A Burning Question 110 

Till Two O'clock in the Morning 114 

An Embarrassing Situation 116 

In Time of Stress 121 

Close at Hand 124 

" Taking the Bull by the Horns " 127 

Glimpses of the White House and Woodley 129 

Talks with the President 134 

Civil Service — Venezuela — Cuba — A Third Term . .136 

" The Whole Barrel is Going ! " 142 

The Arbitration Treaty that Failed 143 

General Sheridan — The President's Tone 144 

Letters from an Anxious Executive 146 

The Other End of the House— Appreciation of Friend- 
ship — Mr. Schurz a Hard Master 158 

What President Cleveland Said to President McKinley, 
and Speaker Reed 164 

Deed, not Record 166 

"Playing Politics" 169 

"Joy's Full Soul Lies in the Doing " 171 

"My Autobiography Written on their Hearts". . . .172 

Cleveland's Own Estimate of Himself 177 

Cleveland and Roosevelt 179 



CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

A Dinner at Laurence Hutton's — A Remarkable Scene 182 

Cleveland's Feeling about Lincoln 186 

" My Passionate Americanism " 191 

" Fortifying his Own Heart " 192 

Conversations with the Ex-President — The Spanish 

War 197 

Cabinet Appointments 203 

Cuba Again — Civil Service Reform — Can Never 

Satisfy Spoilsmen 204 

Putting down the Presidential Foot 207 

The Campaign of Nineteen Hundred 210 

Taxing Combinations, etc 212 

" I 'd Vote for dat Man " 214 

Mr. Sherman and the Cubans — Was the War Justified ? 218 

A Dream 220 

The Panama Affair — A Message to the President . . 225 
The Greatest Grief of his Last Administration . . . 226 

Cortelyou 227 

" A Consecration from the People " 229 

Government Deposits — " Not Another Cent" .... 230 

The Cait Story 233 

Tariff and Warm Weather 234 

A Confederate in the Cabinet 237 

The Danger from Cranks 238 

Not Anxious for his First Presidential Nomination . . 2i;9 

Familiar Letters on Many Themes 244 

A Common Plane of Brotherhood 245 

A "Business Presidency " that Came to Nothing . . .249 

Criticism of the Senate 252 

" Home Surroundings " 254 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

" More Cleveland Luck ! " 255 

" The Heights of Sixty-nine " 256 

"The Caldwelllncident" 261 

Cleveland and Roosevelt Again , ... 203 

Cleveland's Humorous Side 265 

Looking Back 268 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Portrait of Grover Cleveland . . . Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Mrs. Cleveland in the White House ... 9 

Mr. Cleveland's first New York house, 

816 Madison Avenue 25 

Mrs. Cleveland in "The Studio" at Marion, 

1887 51 

Mr. Cleveland and ]Mr. L. Clarke Davis at 

Marion 56 

Joseph Jefferson and his young friends at 

Osterville 63 

Captain Ryder 70 

Captain Ryder's sloop ^/Z«e, of Marion . . 75 

The fireplace in " The Studio" at IMarion . 79 

Mr. Cleveland's first summer house at 

Marion, Massachusetts 87 

Mr. and i\Irs. Cleveland and their three chil- 
dren, Ruth, Esther, and jMarion, at Gray 
Gables 94 

Dr. Joseph D. Bryant 102 

Mr. Cleveland giving instructions at Gray 

Gables 119 

xiii 



xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PA07, 

Woodley 131-- 

The landing at Stayonit 140 • 

The little hotel at Mashpee, Cape Cod . , 140 

Mrs. Cleveland with her daughters Ruth 

and Esther 147 . 

Starting for a day of fishing 154 

McKinley taking the oath of office . . . . 1 (i 1 

An autographic letter by Mr. Cleveland . , 175 

Mr. Cleveland fishing from a floating island 

in Otis Reservoir, August, 1901 .... 187 

Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland and Commodore 

Benedict on the steam-yacht Oneida . , lf)i 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens modeling a bas-re- 
lief of Mrs. Cleveland, in "The Studio" at 

Marion, Massachusetts, summer of 1887 . 205 

"Riverside," the I.. B. Moore farm-house at 

Tyringham, Massachusetts 21 G 

Mr. Cleveland in 1903 222. 

Mr. Cleveland at his summer home, "Inter- 

mont," Tamworth, New Hampshire . . 231 

Governor William E, Russell as sportsman 241 

" Westland," the Cleveland home at Princeton 247 

"The Manse," Caldwell, New Jersey ... 258 



INTRODUCTION 

It has seemed to the writer not only an 
obligation of friendsliip but of patriotism 
to make some record of the personality of 
Mr. Cleveland as revealed in an intimacy 
of many years. The large traits of his . 
character, and those important public 
services which far transcended partisan 
accomplishment, have made their impress 
upon the American people and the world. 
They were eloquently described by high 
officials and leading men of the two great 
parties of the nation at the Memorial 
Meetings of March 18, 1909, on the sev- 
enty-second anniversary of Mr. Cleve- 
land's birth. Sympathetic speakers and 
writers have told much, also, of his charac- 
teristics and his daily walk, but the full 
portrait has not 3'ct been rounded out. I 

[xv] 



INTRODUCTION 

desire merely to add a few intimate toaches 
to that portrait, not thinking to complete 
it ; but only to help loyally toward its com- 
pletion. 



[xvi] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 
A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 



" ONE WHO DID HIS BEST " 



Mr. Lowell wrote to me in 1887: "I 
am glad that you have been seeing the 
President. To me his personahty is very 
simpatico. He is truly an American of 
the best kind — a type very dear to me, 
I confess." There are many of our 
American authors who felt as Mr. Lowell 
did about Mr. Cleveland. I suppose the 
very fact that he was not " literary " was 
a part of the attraction — the fact that 
he was educated, as Taine said of Napo- 
leon, not by books or academies, but by 

[3] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

actualities. They liked his lack of sophis- 
tication, his rustic simplicity of thought, 
that went along with great directness and 
vigor of action. They were attracted, 
too, by his " moral fury " and his courage. 
That INIr. Cleveland should be instinctively 
impressed by the ethical bearings of public 
questions was, perhaps, natural in a de- 
scendant and brother of clergymen, mis- 
sionaries, and teachers ; the cousin of 
Bishop Cleveland Coxe ; one of the same 
stock which has produced the philan- 
thropists William E. Dodge and his chil- 
dren. I heard Professor Child of Har- 
vard say that he was always expecting to 
see some second-rate politician put up a 
base imitation of Cleveland's downright- 
ness and bravery ; but even the imitation 
had not been forthcoming. 

It would not be easy to exaggerate in 
describing Mr. Cleveland's singular union 
of quiet self-confidence with unpreten- 
tiousness and even self-depreciation. I 
have seldom known him to show so much 

[4] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

pleasure in any appreciation of himself as 
in those lines of Lowell contained in a let- 
ter sent to Josiah Quincy, chairman of the 
banquet given in 1890 by the Merchants' 
Association of Boston, in which lines Low- 
ell did not repeat the high praise he had 
given him on other occasions, but simply 
accorded the ex-President credit for hon- 
est intentions, and for merely doing his 
best. 

Let who has felt compute the strain 

Of struggle with abuses strong, 
The doubtful course, the helpless pain 

Of seeing best intents go wrong. 
We who look on with critic eyes, 

Exempt from action's crucial test, 
Human ourselves, at least are wise 

In honoring one who did his best. 

That was Mr. Cleveland's claim about his 
own performance — that he did the best 
he could. When with intimate friends he 
would talk about his successes and failures 
on the stage of the world as unpretentious- 

[5] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

]y as if discussing some unrenowned neigh- 
borhood affair. It was a strange experi- 
ence, when off alone with the ex-President 
in a rowboat on some secluded sheet of 
water, to hear one's fishing companion, 
while skilfully getting ready his tackle, 
talk with inside knowledge, and in phrases 
as graphic as they were homely, of great 
international events In which he was him- 
self a leading actor, and naming unosten- 
tatiously some of the leading living char- 
acters of the world. When he fell into 
reminiscences of this sort, it was appar- 
ently without any sense whatever of his 
own historic Importance. I have never 
seen such unconsciousness. 



[6] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

MY FIRST TALK WITH THE PRESIDENT 

THE MESSAGE THAT DEFEATED HIM 

I had had the honor of meeting Mr. 
Cleveland at the White House before his 
marriage, but really came to know him only 
later in his first administration. My first 
talk with him was at the time of our visit 
to the White House early in December, 
1887. My wife and young son had gone 
down to Washington a few days before, 
and I arrived on Sunday afternoon. We 
sat talking till about eleven o'clock, when 
the ladies retired, and the President asked 
me to go with him into his working room, 
which was then the library. 

He knew of my interest in the cause of 
international copyright, and said at once: 
" I want to tell you why I cannot mention 
international copyright in my message. 
The fact is, I am going to devote the mes- 
sage to one subject only." 

He went on with intense earnestness: 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

" I can't tell jou, Mr. Gilder, what anxi- 
ety we were in last summer. I don't want 
to live through another such time. It 
seemed for a long while as if the country 
were on the verge of a panic. I thought 
of calling an extra session, but after we 
got back from our Western tour, things 
were quieter, and I feared that the call for 
an extra session would itself have an alarm- 
ing effect. If there had been such a ses- 
sion, I should have sent in a special mes- 
sage on the necessity of reducing the 
surplus ; and when I determined not to 
call one, I hated to relinquish the idea of 
doing something that would be likely to do 
good in the direction of tariff reduction. 
At last it occurred to me that there was 
nothing in the Constitution which required 
that the annual message should, as is usual, 
go over the entire public business. The 
Constitution only says, that the President 
' shall, from time to time, give to the Con- 
gress information of the state of the 
Union.' There was no reason why the 

[8] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

message should not be confined to a single 
subject. I spoke to several persons about 
it : sometimes they would say at first : ' Oh, 
no, that can't be done ; ' then after think- 
ing about it, they would say : ' But why 
not? Why, certainly, it's a good idea; 
it is just the thing to do.' " 

He then took from the drawer at his 
right hand a printed copy of the message, 
and read the last pai't of it aloud; then, 
seeing how deeply interested I was, he 
turned to the beginning and thus read 
nearly or quite all. As he read the now 
famous message on the reduction of the 
tariff, he explained minutely why he said 
this or that ; also what he had omitted for 
the sake of brevity and clearness. 

What impressed me was the note of 
earnestness and conviction. His tone was 
that of a person trying to effect a great 
good for the state without the slightest 
regard to his own personal fortunes. He 
was so assured of the righteousness and 
reasonableness of the position assumed that 

[11] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

he felt that if the pubhc could only under- 
stand the actual situation, there would be 
an influence upon Congress which would 
effect the necessary reforms. He was in- 
spired by the idea of a " simple and plain 
duty." " It is a condition which con- 
fronts us — not a theory." These now 
familiar words were the expression of an 
intense conviction. However, he saw 
clearly and stated clearly the difficulties 
in the way, even the difficulties of thor- 
oughly uniting his own party on the issue. 
I said to him that the document would be 
more widely read than any put forth since 
the war, and that it would have the tend- 
ency to make annual messages matters of 
importance instead of merely perfunctory 
and uninfluential performances. There 
was nothing said or suggested by either 
of us as to the eff*ect of this appeal to the 
country upon his own continuance in office. 
The message, as is generally believed, lost 
him the approaching election ; but it was 

[12] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

the groundwork of his subsequent nomina- 
tion and second election to the Presidency. 

TARIFF REFORMERS ADVISE AGAINST THE 
MESSAGE 

Colonel Silas W. Burt, who, because 
of his position in Albany as Chief Examin- 
er of the State Civil Service Commission 
when Mr. Cleveland was Governor, had seen 
more of him personally than any of the 
Independents, tells me that just before the 
issuance of the tariff reform message there 
was a conference of Independents in New 
York, including Messrs. George William 
Curtis, Carl Schurz, and Edwin L. God- 
kin, at which he was requested to urge the 
President to keep the subject of lowering 
the tariff in abeyance in his forthcoming 
message to Congress. It was thought im- 
politic to bring up the question then, not 
only because it would imperil Cleveland's 

[13] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

election, but because the opportunity of 
accomplishing a revision would be greater 
at the beginning of a Presidential term. 
Accordingly, Colonel Burt saw the Presi- 
dent and laid before him the policy sug- 
gested. Mr. Cleveland sat silent a while 
after hearing him, looking steadily in an- 
other direction. Then he turned and said : 
" Colonel Burt, do you not think that the 
people of the United States are entitled to 
some instruction on this subject?" The 
President then went on to describe what 
he regarded as the possible dangers and 
disturbances that might result from the 
condition at that time — the existence of 
an enormous surplus, which was constantly 
being increased by means of a high tariff. 
At the end of the conversation the 
Colonel said : " Well, ]Mr. President, if you 
feel that way, and look upon the matter 
as a duty, I suppose that you will have to 
say something on the subject in the mes- 
sage." Little did the Colonel anticipate 
that the message would be wholly devoted 

[14] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

to that one subject. The incident, he said, 
increased his respect and admiration for 
Mr. Cleveland, and they had never since 
diminished. 

COPYRIGHT AND FREE ART 

I had not intended to mention interna- 
tional copyright to the President while his 
guest, although my interest in that cause 
was far from being a personal one. His 
mention of copyright was voluntary and 
unexpected. After the reading and dis- 
cussion of the message, the President laid 
it down, turned round to me where I was 
sitting at his left, and said: 

" Mr. Gilder, tell me why you take so 
much interest in international copy- 
right? " 

I told him that I regarded it as a moral 
question, that the attitude of America in 
permitting the piracy of the works of for- 
eign authors was a national disgrace. He 

[15] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

smiled as if pleased and satisfied, and re- 
marked that Mark Twain had said the 
same thing in bringing the matter to his 
attention, but he wanted to know, also, how 
I felt about it. 

" There is another matter," he added, 
" that I think is shameful, and that is the 
way we treat foreign artists. Our young 
men get a fine art education in Europe, 
and we put a thirty per cent, duty on for- 
eign works of art ! " He added, as if 
speaking to himself, " By the by, perhaps 
we can do something about that in the 
bill." 

Nothing came of this immediately ; but 
in Cleveland's second administration the 
Wilson Act contained a free-art provision. 

As to international copyright, Mr. 
Cleveland, convinced of the moral bearings 
of the question, by every means in his 
power promoted the cause, and It was 
largely through his efforts that the meas- 
ure, under the subsequent (Republican) 
administration, became a law. In order 

[16] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

to call the favorable attention of Congress 
to the subject, he and Mrs. Cleveland gave 
an evening reception to many well-known 
authors at the White House, at which the 
Diplomatic Corps, the members of the Su- 
preme Court, and influential members of 
Congress were brought into contact with 
the leaders of the international copyright 
movement. This was at the time of the 
Authors'* Reading given in Washington in 
the interest of the reform, which reading 
was attended by the President and Mrs. 
Cleveland. 

DISINTERESTED PUBLIC SERVANTS 

This same winter I had a talk with him 
one night at the White House, in which 
he deplored the general extravagance. One 
sign of it, he said, was that people in busi- 
ness were not content nowadays with an 
Income of even thirty or forty thousand 
dollars a year. He then began to talk 

[17] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

very earnestly and like a man surprised at 
what he found to be the condition of 
things in Washington. He said that there 
were fewer absolutely disinterested men in 
Congress than he had expected to find. 
There were some, though, he declared ; and 
he spoke especially of one who had 
acted against his constituency's supposed 
desire, had done what he believed was 
right, — and then had appealed to his con- 
stituency, and had been sustained. Under 
our present system, he thought the class 
of men intended by the framers of the 
Government to be its legislators were not, 
as a rule, coming to Congress. He felt 
that the writers for the press had a duty 
to the public in this matter. On this and 
other occasions he spoke of the careless- 
ness, the recklessness, of legislation, and 
the curse of special private legislation of 
all kinds. For instance, defective or mis- 
chievous bills were passed supposedly un- 
der the approval of the chairman of a cer- 
tain committee ; they would keep coming, 

[18] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

however, whether he was sick or well, and 
apparently without having received con- 
sideration. He said he would want no bet- 
ter campaign document than a pamphlet 
containing all his pension vetoes placed in 
every Grand Army Post in the country. 



HOW CLEVELAND FELT ABOUT HIS FIRST 
ADMINISTRATION 



On the night of December 30, 1888, 
after his defeat by Mr. Harrison, I had 
a long talk with the President in his work- 
ing room at the White House. It was a 
sort of review of his first administration. 
He spoke of his enormous difficulties — 
how from the very outset he had had to 
resist appeals to do what no man would 
rather do than he ; namely, oblige his good 
personal friends. 

One trouble was that good men, even 
civil-service-reform men, would sometimes 

[19] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

recommend the retention of officials not 
desirable. 

He spoke again of his astonishment at 
getting a letter from a leading civil-serv- 
ice reformer in New York, saying that 
the reformers did not consider that Dor- 
man B. Eaton represented them. When 
he found this out, he wrote a grieved and 
severe letter. He was never more aston- 
ished in his life ; he had been keeping in 
close sympathy with Eaton, supposing 
that his views were those of the reform- 
ers. 

He told, also, all about the retention of 
Postmaster Pearson in New York. He 
wanted to keep him there as a conspicuous 
example of executive ability and thorough- 
ness, an object-lesson in reform; the same 
with Edward O. Graves of the Bureau of 
Printing and Engraving. There were 
charges against Pearson. He had him 
come to Washington and go over them 
carefully, so that he could meet them fully, 
as he did. 

[20] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

He thought the reformers had been 
too quick to pick flaws and to condemn. 
He did not claim to be incapable of mis- 
takes. But they were too apt, on hearing 
of removals, to believe that there were no 
good reasons for them — this on the tes- 
timony of the removed officials ! He 
thought this criticism had put arguments 
into the mouth of the enemy ; would lead 
people to believe that he had broken 
pledges, and that the future historian, 
reading these criticisms in papers that had 
supported him, would perpetuate this false 
impression. " They say I have gone back 
on every civil-service pledge. I should 
like to know what pledges I have broken ! " 

He said that, by the three moves re- 
cently made, they had covered a large pro- 
portion of the places that the law permitted 
to be put under the rules ; that these re- 
forms had been carried on independently 
of the reformers, and as a part of his gen- 
eral work. He said he made no distinction 
between that part of his duties connected 

[21] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

directly with this subject of the civil-serv- 
ice rules and his general work ; it all went 
on together. 

He thought it likely that the work the 
Administration had actually done would 
be passed over as unimportant, or as fail- 
ure; that there had been no brilliant 
things, like the acquisition of new terri- 
tory. Something, however, might per- 
haps be said about the tariff message itself, 
he thought. 

His tone was that of a man who had 
conscientiously done his very best, resist- 
ing pressure on all sides ; although not 
without mistakes, clear in his own con- 
science, knowing that reforms had been 
effected, but expecting that the criticism 
of even his supporters would confuse the 
record, and never expecting a full recogni- 
tion of his labors. He had heard, he add- 
ed, that even a certain prominent reformer 
had said, in the first bitterness of defeat, 
that, after all, if the President had been 
more shrewd, and had placated the spoils- 

[22 ] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

men more, he would have been reelected. 
During all of this visit he was not de- 
jected, though he spoke with disgust of 
some of his own party in Congress who, 
knowing that he and the party were going 
out, were now ready to favor the very 
things the party had condemned. I told 
him that I had no fear as to his record 
— that he had effected, by his Adminis- 
tration, a favorable change in a great 
party, and had given it a policy. 

BETWEEN THE TWO PRESIDENTIAL TERMS 

<^ 

Nothing in Mr. Cleveland's career was 
more remarkable than his conduct during 
the four 3'ears that he lived as a private 
citizen in New York between his two Pres- 
idential terms. Not the least exceptional 
circumstance in his career, by the way, 
was the fact that he was the only man 
elected to separated Presidential terms. 
He was, during this entire interval of four 

[23] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

years, the principal figure in his party, 
though not its active leader. The party, 
in fact, had no acknowledged leader ; yet 
all through these years the general public 
had no doubt as to the fact that he was 
the party's most notable figure. 

I saw a great deal of him during this 
time, in New York, at Marion, and in 
journeys and visits here and there. The 
absence from his house of politicians was 
exceptional and noteworthy. He kept in 
touch with the people by means of a large 
correspondence carried on with committee- 
men of little clubs in various parts of the 
country, and with other politically sympa- 
thetic persons. This correspondence was 
not of his initiation. Whenever he 
thought a letter-writer was sincere, he 
would answer him, — always with his own 
hand, — and without keeping copies of his 
letters. I thought this rash, and won- 
dered that no harm came of it. I remon- 
strated with him on the subject, but he 
said that any one would have to produce 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

the letter itself, if claim should be made 
that he had written this or that; so he did 
not bother about it. He felt that he was 
sowing the seed of honest, and, what he 
called, " genuine Democracy " by this 
correspondence, and his habit in this re- 
spect had its effect upon future events. 

During these four years he was practis- 
ing law in New York. Of course old as- 
sociates and visitors from out of town 
would drop in sometimes at his down-town 
office ; but the}^ seldom followed him up 
during his evening hours. He greatly 
prized the quiet and privacy of his home, 
after so many years of public service. 

Here he was, living in the city in which 
existed the largest and most thoroughly 
disciplined political machine in his party, 
the strongest political organization in the 
country. A " logical candidate " might 
easily have permitted himself to cultivate 
some sort of " pleasant relations " with 
the leaders of the machine. But nothing 
of the kind was going on. Neither was 

[27] 



GROVER CLEVELAND; 

there any attempt to manipulate " power- 
ful leaders " or machine influences in other 
sections. His desire seemed to be not to 
" pull wires," but to act upon public opin- 
ion by occasional addresses, and, as I have 
said, by sympathetic responses to let- 
ters received from right-minded men all 
over the land, not in his own interest, but 
in the interest of the principles in which 
he believed. 

CONDITION OF ACCEPTING NOMINATION 

As time went on, he used sometimes to 
express amazement at the way some of the 
so-called leaders were willing to allow 
things to drift away from what he called 
the true principles of the Democratic 
Part}^ One summer when we were jour- 
neying alone from ]\Iarion to Providence, 
where he was to make an address, he spoke 
with great emphasis as to his possible can- 
didacy, declaring that if his party wanted 

[28] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

him again, it Avould have to take a very dif- 
ferent course from that indicated by the 
opinion and action of some of its more 
prominent men. He said, with determina- 
tion, that he would not consent to be a 
candidate unless on a basis of honest prin- 
ciple. This was in keeping with what he 
declared just before his third nomination, 
that he would " have the Presidency clean 
or not at all." 

In our talks at INIarion he was very much 
exercised over the fact that the Democratic 
leaders were apparently doing nothing to 
stem the tide of financial heresy. " What 
are they thinking about ! " he exclaimed. 
He saw danger ahead for the party. 
When he talked on the possibilities of his 
becoming a candidate, it was in a tone of 
deprecation. He seemed to be searching 
in his mind to find some one else who, while 
uniting the party, would uphold the prin- 
ciples which he earnestly believed should 
be maintained. 

As illustrating the independence and 
[29] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

dignity of Mr. Cleveland's conduct during 
this whole critical period, I may mention 
a significant occurrence. Once during the 
out-of-office period, by request and with his 
consent, I introduced to him, at his count- 
try house, two acquaintances of mine. 
One of them, the editor of an Influential 
religious and political paper, had a private 
conversation with him. When he came 
out, I asked the editor how he got along 
with the ex-PresIdent. " Splendidl}^" he 
said. " He is the greatest man I ever 
met — and he would n't promise to do a 
thing I wanted ! " 

Mr. Cleveland had told me before the 
interview that he would be very glad to 
see the gentlemen ; he did not know — nor 
did I — what they might wish from him. If 
anything. He then said with great em- 
phasis : " If I am ever President of this 
country again, I shall be President of the 
whole country, and not of any set of men 
or class in It." There was apparently lit- 
tle or no politics in the request made of 

[30] 



A KECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

him by the editor; but I know few poli- 
ticians who, with the prospect of a Presi- 
dential candidacy" in sight, would not have 
stretched a point to cultivate a useful ally. 
He acted simply, naturally, and Avith per- 
fect frankness ; and he refused in such 
good spirit that he made not an enemy, 
but a friend. 

THHOWING AWAY THE PRESIDENCY 

I never saw Mr. Cleveland more elated 
than after he had thrown the Presidency 
out of the window by his anti-free-silver 
letter — in February, 1891. The situa- 
tion was typical of his career. The ques- 
tion had arisen as to what reply he should 
make to the invitation of the Reform Club 
to attend a banquet at which the free coin- 
age of silver was to be attacked. Some of 
his advisei's thought he should keep silent 
on this subject, so that the chances of his 
renomination might not be injured. But 

[31] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

he characteristically used the occasion to 
reaffirm his opposition to what he regarded 
as a financial heresy, and in unmistakable 
terms he denounced " the dangerous and 
reckless experiment of free, unlimited, and 
independent silver coinage." 

At once the cry went up from the ma- 
chine men of the party all over the coun- 
try that this was the end of Cleveland. 
Mr. Wilson (afterward Postmaster-Gen- 
eral) told me that when he and a friend 
sauntered out of the House of Representa- 
tives together, they soon found that they 
were the only members of that body who 
did not believe that Mr. Cleveland was a 
*' back number." In fact, among those 
regarded as Democratic leaders, the opin- 
ion seemed to be well-nigh unanimous that 
he would never again be the standard- 
bearer of his party. 

As for Mr, Cleveland himself, he was 
not only undismayed, but joyful. His in- 
tense delight in the incident seemed to 
spring from two sources : first, his pleasure 

[32] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

In having availed himself of the opportu- 
nlt}^ of telling the truth and circulating 
the right doctrine, and, second, his satis- 
faction at having been able to show that 
he was not " waiting around " for a third 
nomination. In other words, he felt that 
he had demonstrated that he cared more 
for principle than for the Presidency. 
Every once in a while Cleveland " threw 
away the Presidency," and I never saw 
him so happ}'^ as when he had done It ; as, 
for Instance, after the tariff message, and 
now again after the silver letter. 

But back of his action In thus alarming 
some of his anxious political advisers was, 
evidently, a prophetic sense, of the ulti- 
mate fortunate effect of a brave word of 
conviction on a burning question. He 
cared nothing for the conventional opin- 
ions of professional politicians : he was 
looking for the decisions of a wider audi- 
ence ; and he was not disappointed. 

One afternoon, very soon after the let- 
ter, we were driving up-town together, 

[33] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

when he expressed himself with frank en- 
thusiasm : " I don't believe any man in the 
country," said he, " can be havino^ such an 
experience as I am having ; letters are com- 
ing to me from all parts of the country 
commending that letter. I tell you, the 
people always come out right when they 
have a chance to look into a thing ! " In 
this same conversation he said that so far 
as he was concerned, he would be willing 
to enter upon a Presidential campaign 
without the support of Tammany Hall. 
I find among my notes concerning the In- 
cident of the silver letter this reflection: 
" Cleveland always is more cheerful, al- 
ways at his best, when he Is making a fight 
for principle." 

Mr. Fairchild told me that, a while 
before the anti-free-coinage letter, Mr. 
Cleveland appeared unannounced at the 
ex-Secretary's down-town office, and soon 
began to talk about the absurd position 
he seemed to be In, In the minds of a 
part of the people, as If he were a man 

[34] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

sitting around waiting for some one to 
make him President. When the letter 
came out, Mr. Fairchild was very much 
touched, remembering the conversation ; 
for his first thought was : he has proved 
now that he is not waiting for some one 
to make him President ! 

WHAT HE SAID TO HIMSELF AT ALBANY 

Mr. Cleveland always insisted upon this 
■ — that if right political policies were sim- 
ply and clearly put before the American 
people, they would generally make a wise 
and honest decision. He was sometimes 
discouraged; but I do not think he was 
ever fundamentally shaken in his belief. 
He realized that there might be long pe- 
riods of indecision or mistake, but he 
looked forward to a final satisfactory out- 
come. 

He was encouraged in this view by vari- 
ous occurrences in his own public career, 

[35] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

for he often did a right but risky thing; 
and instead of losing by it, his popularity 
and influence were strengthened. It was 
so with incidents in his relations, for in- 
stance, with Tammany Hall. His letter, 
when Governor, to the Tammany leader 
in New York, protesting against the sup- 
port by Tammany of a certain silver- 
tongued, but, ethically speaking, annoying 
member of the legislature, increased a per- 
sonal enmity, but was only another proof 
to the public of the Governor's fearless 
rectitude. 

He told me that after vetoing, as Gov- 
ernor, on grounds of law and good faith, 
the popular bill reducing from ten to five 
cents the fare on the New York Elevated 
Railway for the whole day (it was al- 
ready five in the hours when working-men 
traveled most), he expected to be bitterl}'^ 
assailed. " Before I was married," he 
said, " I used sometimes to talk to myself 
when I was alone, and after the veto, that 
night, when I was throwing off my clothes, 

[36] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

I said aloud : ' By to-morrow at this time 
I shall be the most unpopular man in the 
State of New York!'" What was his 
surprise the next day to find the veto re- 
ceived with a general outburst of applause ! 

THE CLEVELAND MOTTO 

At the Memorial Meeting on ]March 18, 
1909, President Taft thus admirably sum- 
marized Cleveland's chief characteristics : 
" Simplicity and directness of thought, 
sturdy honesty, courage of his convictions, 
and plainness of speech, with a sense of 
public duty that has been exceeded by no 
statesman within my knowledge. It was 
so strong in him that he rarely wrote any- 
thing, whether in the form of a private or 
public communication, that the obligation 
of all men to observe the public interest 
was not his chief theme." 

With certain newspaper writers this re- 
iteration by Cleveland of the duties of 
3 [37] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

citizenship was made a reproach ; but 
President Taft, from the point of view of 
a hke spirit of public duty, placed this 
habit in its true light. The phrase, " Pub- 
lic office a public tinist," will always be 
associated with Cleveland's memory, not- 
withstanding that he never uttered it in ex- 
actly that form. The phrase was Colonel 
Lamont's correct summary of the Cleve- 
land doctrine, placed on the title-page of 
an early election pamphlet. In substance 
he was always saying it ; and if he did not 
say it precisely as thus condensed, he did 
better: he lived it, and made it live. The 
nearest he came to uttering literally his 
own watchword seems to have been in a 
speech made by him at the Fellowcraft 
Club in New York, soon after he left the 
White House for the first time, when he 
said : " Thoughtful men will not deny that 
danger lurks in the growing tendency of 
to-day to regard public office as something 
which may be sought and administered for 
private ends, instead of being received and 

[38] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

held as a public trust." But in accepting, 
in 1881, the nomination for Mayor of 
Buffalo he had said: "Public officials are 
the trustees of the people," and in his ac- 
ceptance of the nomination for Governor, 
in 1882, he said: "Public officers are the 
servants and agents of the people." The 
duty of all citizens to the State found ut- 
terance in his first inaugural address, when 
he said : " Your every voter, as surely as 
your Chief Magistrate, under the same 
high sanction, though in a different sphere, 
exercises a public trust." 

One of the strangest and most charac- 
teristic events in Mr. Cleveland's life was 
his appearance at the University of Michi- 
gan, to make an address on Washington's 
Birthday, on the very day in 1892 when 
the convention of his own State and party 
met to nominate a rival candidate, Mr. 
David B. Hill, for the Presidency. This 
convention, being held in Albany earlier 
than usual, was called the Snap Conven- 
tion. I had the pleasure of going out with 

[39] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Dickinson to 
Ann Arbor, and of observing the remark- 
able hold the ex-President had on the good 
people of that part of the country, regard- 
less of party lines. He gave himself up to 
the enjoyment of preaching the " good 
citizenship " of George Washington to a 
great, youthful, and sympathetic audience. 
This address on Washington, and the 
one delivered by him at Chicago, also on 
Washington's Birthday, are full of the 
Cleveland doctrine of good citizenship, in 
and out of office, stated with great sincer- 
ity and impressiveness. The Ann Arbor 
address was a plea for sentiment — for 
American sentiment, the sentiment in 
which the nation was conceived and must 
be preserved. If the orator himself seemed 
unconcerned as to events then occurring at 
home, he was probably not unmindful of 
them, and his audience assuredly was well 
aware of them. I shall never forget the 
storm of applause which greeted these sig- 
nificant words : " Be not deceived. The 

[40] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

people are not dead, but sleeping. They 
will awaken in good time, and scourge the 
money-changers from their sacred temple." 
In a few months Cleveland was nominated 
again at Chicago and in the following 
autumn he was elected to the Presidency. 



Cleveland's writing 



One hears two diametrically opposite 
opinions as to Cleveland's ability to ex- 
press himself. One is that he wrote awk- 
wardly, in a redundant, roundabout, and 
heavy manner. The other opinion was ex- 
pressed by so severe a critic as Thomas 
Bailey Aldrich, who, whenever I met him, 
or heard from him, had something enthu- 
siastic to say about INIr. Cleveland and 
often spoke of his ability as a writer. In 
a letter, written in 1901, he said: "I've 
been reading with intense interest I\Ir. 
Cleveland's second Venezuela paper. 

[41] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

What admirable diction, compact, strong, 
and simple — simple as all great writing 
is." 

This is the truth of the matter as it 
seems to me: during his public life Mr. 
Cleveland was not much of a reader. 
The sermons he heard in ^-outh, and 
later, apparently set a standard of con- 
ventional diction ; and, furthermore, his 
sense of dignity induced him to approach 
a subject sometimes in an over-formal 
manner. But the conviction of the man, 
the indignation at injustice, the " moral 
fury," tended to produce in many a docu- 
ment and speech some expression as direct 
and vehement as his feeling. Then were 
struck out the hot and memorable phrases 
scattered through his messages as Mayor, 
Governor, and President, and in innumer- 
able addresses and letters — such phrases 
as those which met with quick applause 
when read by Governor Hughes at the 
Memorial INIeeting at Carnegie Hall.^ 

1 The department of Noted Sayings in the Sted- 

[42] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

And as the years were added, a note of 
tenderness stole into his habitual thought, 
sometimes lending an unexpected charm to 
his written or spoken expression. 

As to the ponderous character of many 
of his passages, there is a good deal in the 
remark of Jesse Lynch Williams that he 
was innately shy, and " unconsciously, per- 
haps, he hid behind his style." In some of 
his documents, particularly his Thanks- 
giving proclamations, his familiarity with 
the Bible was naturally shown ; and when 
once some friend congratulated him on 
his biblical manner, he was pleased with 
the compliment, though he told of it 
jokingly. 

People have often asked me whether he 
wrote his own documents. They little 
knew the mind of the patient, plodding 
writer who only at the very last could 
even ease his labors by means of dic- 

man-Hutchinson " Library of American Litera- 
ture" (1890) contains more quotations from 
Cleveland than from any other public man. 

[43] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

tation. He often read his speeches and 
other writings to friends, but seldom got 
any direct aid in composition. I flattered 
myself that I once — it was only once — 
induced him to change some unimportant 
phrase. 

One reason that he was so unaided 
was a characteristic of his literal hon- 
esty: he knew better than any one else 
what was in his mind ; and he worked this 
out in language carefully selected to ex- 
press his exact thought, in a doubtful case 
calling upon the dictionary for precise 
definition. Perhaps there was a touch of 
pride in it, too, a harmless, self-reliant 
pride. At times he brought into currency 
a word not often on the tongue, as in the 
now popular phrase, — often used with a 
smile, — " innocuous desuetude." I know 
of at least one case where he seemed to 
have coined a word. It was not in the 
dictionary, but etymological authorities 
said it was all right, and the editors were 

[44] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

glad to let It go — especially as the writer 
insisted upon it ! 

I speak of his self-reliance. He had 
learned that through experience, but, as 
remarked above, he was very far from con- 
ceited. In talking once about Abram S. 
Hewitt, he Intimated that If he only knew 
as much as Mr. Hewitt, he might amount 
to something! On account of his lack of 
a collegiate education he was Inclined at 
first to be shy of literary men ; I could not 
get his consent, after he came to New 
York, to have him meet a number of them, 
in recognition of his service to the cause 
of international copyright. 

He was at one time shy of colleges ; dur- 
ing his first term, It will be remembered, 
he refused to accept a degree from Har- 
vard. But his life in Princeton, and his 
desire to be useful In his community, grad- 
ually brought him Into the college spirit, 
Induced him to accept an honorary doc- 
torate, and made him a highly useful 

[45] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

and influential trustee of a great univer- 
sity.^ 



MONEY NO TEMPTATION 

In speaking of Cleveland no one can 
help reiterating the word " honesty." All 
decent people are supposed to be honest, 
and an indifferent reader might well in- 
quire, Why such harping on so common a 
virtue? But aside from the fact that 
thorough-going honesty is not absolutely 
pervasive, certainly in Cleveland's case the 
trait was almost phenomenally developed. 
The honesty of the man was in the mind 
of Mr. Taft and of all the memorial speak- 
ers, whether they knew him little or much, 
and most of them knew him well. Two 
men who, in diiferent times and places, 
were long acquainted with him, said to 

1 He consented to receive a degree from Prince- 
ton, and afterward from Villanova. 

[46] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

me lately that Mr. Cleveland was the 
most honest man they had ever known. 

A few years ago, a prominent editor, 
when talking to me about Mr. Cleveland, 
expressed a good deal of admiration and 
but one doubt. He said Mr. Cleveland's 
relations to a certain rich friend, and the 
ex-President's money-making, would have 
to be explained. I answered that these 
would not have to be explained to me, be- 
cause, though I did not know much about 
his financial affairs, I could vouch for the 
fact that he was one of the most scrupu- 
lous men I had ever known ; and, besides, I 
knew he was not what we call nowadays 
a rich man. A little while after this, Mr. 
Cleveland happened to be talking pretty 
freely with me about his resources, and 
told me about just having lost several 
thousand dollars on a scruple — unneces- 
sarily as it turned out. After relatmg the 
incident, he said: " But I don't deserve any 
credit for that, because money has never 
been a temptation to me," 

[47] 



{ 



\ 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

I told this to my editorial friend, and 
he replied: "Oh, I have got over all anx- 
iety about that, as I've found out how 
glad he was to get the check we sent him 
for his article." 

Soon after he left office and settled in 
Princeton, he told me that there was talk 
about making a position for him with a 
large salary attached. He said such good 
friends were in the movement that he 
could not act hastily and in a way that 
would seem ungrateful, but that he would 
not accept a position in which he would 
be unable to perform adequate service. 
He, in fact, declined the position. 

I remember that at a time when he was 
adding to his not large income by indus- 
triously contributing to periodicals, he in- 
sisted upon certain publishers paying him 
considerably less than the sum they offered 
for a certain article published by them, on 
the ground that it was more than he had 
received for a similar contribution pub- 
lished elsewhere. 

[48] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

When, in his late years, he heard that a 
very young boy, in whom he was especially 
interested, had been surprised that his 
teacher should think it worth while to 
commend, before the entire class, his con- 
duct in refusing to take a " perfect " mark 
in a composition in which the boy himself 
discovered a slight error, Mr. Cleveland 
was immensely gratified. He said to an 
intimate friend that the boy evidently was 
going to be like him ; because untruthful- 
ness seemed to be no temptation whatever 
to either of them. 

A EACY TALKER 

As between Mr. Cleveland's expression in 
conversation and his public writings, 
never was such a contrast. As to his 
familiar talk — no taint of formalism 
there ! The President was one of the 
very raciest of talkers and raconteurs. 
Joe Jefferson used to say that Mr. Cleve- 

[49] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

land missed his vocation when he WPtit into 
pohtics instead of going upon the stage. 
Sometimes, too, when one was alone with 
him, he would betray the tenderness and 
sentiment which were so deep in his na- 
ture. 

When he had any distrust of the person 
with whom he was conversing, most of the 
talk was on the other side, though the in- 
terlocutor was not always aware of the 
fact. With a few familiar friends, how- 
ever, he was the soul of good company ; 
not dominating the conversation, — as has 
been said, he was " a good listener," — but 
doing his share of repartee and story-tell- 
ing, with all the aids of wit, a good mem- 
ory for detail, and, when necessary, the 
faculty of mimicry. One night at ]Marlon 
— but I must first tell how he came to go 
to Marion. 



[50] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

A FRIENDSHIP WITH JOE JEFFERSON 

One da}', soon after tlie first term, and 
while he was staying at the Victoria Hotel, 
he turned to me and said : " Are there any 
fish up around Marion ? " This was the 
village near Cape Cod where my family 
then spent their summers — a place which 
had been visited by Mrs. Cleveland and 
her mother and aunt soon after the Presi- 
dent's marriage. 

My answer was evasive. I said that I 
should not like to be responsible as to the 
fish in our Marion waters ; that my expe- 
rience as a fisherman in those parts had 
been in the company of Joe Jefferson, and 
that I would therefore bring him into the 
case as an expert. So one day Jeffer- 
son came and told the ex-President all 
about the fishing in Buzzards Bay, and in 
the streams and lakes of Cape Cod, near 
the home of that great actor and enchant- 
ing personality. The result was that the 

[53] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

Clevelands took a small cottage next to us 
at Marion for the first part of the summer 
of 1889, and another cottage near for the 
last weeks of their stay. Next year they 
again came to Marion, taking a larger 
house. Then they bought a place across 
the bay, near the Jeffersons, which they 
named " Gray Gables," and occupied for 
years, till their summer home was changed 
to Tamworth, New Hampshire. 

The book of one's life is divided into few 
or many volumes : some may be unhappy, 
some full of romance and the joy of life. 
Mr. Cleveland's question about the fishing 
possibilities of the Marion waters proved 
to be the opening of a volume brimming 
with unalloyed pleasure for a little group 
of friends, many of whom are now no 
more. 

Jefferson had been eager to make Mr. 
Cleveland's personal acquaintance, for, as 
he told me, Cleveland was the only poli- 
tician in whom he had ever taken an inter- 

[54] 










'A 
•A 
-3 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

est. He had recognized, he said, early in 
Cleveland's career, that here was a new 
kind of public man — all frankness and 
courage. Jefferson had even done what 
was with him an absolutely novel thing: 
he had attended, as a deeply interested 
spectator, one of the early conventions in 
which Mr. Cleveland was nominated to a 
high office, and he had watched his career 
with profound interest. The two men, so 
different in training and temperament, 
soon became mutually admiring and affec- 
tionate friends. 

Cleveland ; Jefferson ; Jefferson's eldest 
son, Charles (our manager and provider) ; 
that knightly figure, too early dead. Gov- 
ernor Russell ; the modest and genial Sandy 
Wood (Jefferson's friend) ; our sometime 
companion, the actor Lawrence Barrett; 
L. Clarke Davis, of Philadelphia ; — all 
these are gone. Gone, too, our sometime 
hosts, John M. Forbes of the lovely island 
of Naushon, and Albert Nickerson, the 
hospitable master of Great Hill. 
♦ [ 57 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

During the first summer or two, every 
Friday night, Mr. Cleveland and I would 
go up on the Fall River boat, generally 
spending Saturday and Monday in fish- 
ing in Captain Ryder's small craft on 
Buzzards Bay, and in vacation time we 
fished together every fair day. Once in a 
while, then, and later, after the Clevelands 
were at Gray Gables, the JefFersons would 
get up a driving expedition down through 
Sandwich to the little Indian village of 
Mashpee, on Cape Cod, where half a 
dozen of us would take all the rooms in 
the one small hotel, kept by Mr. and ^Nlrs. 
Holmes. 

There were two communicating lakes 
near the hotel, Mashpee and Wakeby. 
Charles Jefferson bought for us three tiny 
islands in Wakeby, and we named them, 
in imitation of Cotuit, and the rest of the 
neighboring Indian nomenclature, Come- 
toit, Getoffit, and Stayonit. Sometimes we 
would picnic on Stayonit, but oftener we 
would cross the two lakes in a small, na- 

[58] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

tive-made steamboat, constructed, I be- 
lieve, as well as run by an ingenious 
colored man, and fish for bass in the neigh- 
boring lake, called Peter's Pond. 

After an early breakfast at the hotel, 
and after reaching our fishing-place, Mr. 
Cleveland and Charley Jefferson, and Joe 
Jefferson and I would pair off for the seri- 
ous work of tiie da}-, coming together mer- 
rily at lunch-time on the shore, and again 
on the way home, tired, for a short even- 
ing, with early-to-bed and early-to-rlse. 

Perhaps I can give no better description 
of Mr. Cleveland as a fisherman than in 
the language of a brief speech at the nelgl^- 
borly dinner given to the ex-President at 
Sandwich on the 11th of INIay, 1895, soon 
after he had become a summer resident of 
the Cape, when I said: 

If Mr. Cleveland has made a memorable 
success of his life, is it not owing to the 
fact that he has both made a pleasure of 
business and a business of pleasure.'* His 

[59] 



GROVER CLEVELAND; 

cheerful and indefatigable work in office is 
well known. His Cape Cod neighbors 
have discovered that he has made a business 
of pleasure — not a wearing, laborious 
business, but a cheerful, contented, and 
persistent business. When my discursive 
eye has roamed the horizon when it should 
have followed the line, how often have I 
heard the warning from the other side of 
the boat : *' If you want to catch fish, at- 
tend strictly to business ! " Why, the 
guest we honor to-day will fish when it 
shines and fish when it rains ; I have seen 
him pull up bass in a lively thunder-storm, 
and refuse to be driven from a Cape Cod 
pond by the worst hail-storm I ever wit- 
nessed or suffered. He will fish through 
hunger and heat, lightning and tempest. 
While the elder and wiser Jefferson and I 
will go off and dry our clothes, the younger 
Jefferson, — our Cape Cod Prince Charley, 
— and the ex-President will keep on while 
light holds and bass bite. This, I have 

[60] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

discovered, is the secret of " Cleveland 
luck " ; it is hard work and no let up. 

While Joe Jefferson was an enthusiastic 
fisherman, Mr. Cleveland and Charley 
Jefferson were inveterate fishermen. The 
hail-storm referred to came up suddenly 
one day while we were in the middle of 
Peter's Pond. We put for shore, and were 
soon being pelted with big hailstones, 
while the boats were gradually filling with 
ice-water. Joe Jefferson and I climbed a 
hill and dried our clothes in the kitchen of 
a neighboring fai*m-house ; but the Presi- 
dent and Charley Jefferson, after the worst 
had past, went back to work with the con- 
viction that it was just the time that fish 
would bite. Pretty soon another storm 
came up and droA'e them to shore, — and up 
the hill for shelter, soaked, but laughing 
like boys on a lark. 

Mr. Cleveland was immoderate in only 
two things — his desk-work and his fishing. 

[61] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

Over and over he sat up till near morning 
at his desk in the White House ; and he 
was always eager to begin fishing, and 
never appeared to be quite willing to stop. 
Often when we would be out all day fish- 
ing for bottom-fish and bluefish, he would 
plead, after we started for home, for " one 
more turn " that he knew, like a naughty 
boy, would make us late for dinner; and 
Captain Ryder would put the AUie about, 
our lines out again for " fisherman's 
luck." 

Once when the surface of a Cape Cod 
lake reflected uncomfortably the noonday 
sun, Joe Jefferson and I pulled to shore 
and stretched ourselves restfully in the cool 
shade of the trees. Then Jefferson, look- 
ing off to where his son and the ex-Presi- 
dent of the United States were at their 
patient labors in the broiling heat, quietly 
remarked : " Well, it is luck^^ for us that 
you and I can do something besides fish 1 " 



[62] 




JOSEPH JEFFEKSON AND HIS YOUNG FKIENDS AT OSTEKVILLE 

This plicitiigraph was taken in 1884 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

ON THE TRAIN FOR GRAY GABLES 

Mr. Cleveland never forgot the dignity 
of the presidency, either as incumbent, or 
as one who had held that high office. Both 
in and out of office he was perfectly simple 
and unpretentious in his manners ; entirely 
approachable ; on proper occasions full of 
bonhomie. One might, at first glance, 
think it inconsistent with his hatred of 
fuss and feathers, that no ceremonial of 
the Executive office, just as no executive 
prerogative, was weakened under his 
regime. It was his love of order, and 
sense of propriety, which led him to be- 
come an adept in those rules of precedence 
that have been found necessary in order to 
carry on with decency and dignity the so- 
cial side of life at a capital where all the 
nations and potentates of the world are 
officially represented, and the highest offi- 
cers of a great government reside. He 
was as careful, conscientious, and sensible 

[65] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

in deciding the details of a formal dinner, 
or other function at the Executive Man- 
sion, as he was in the more important re- 
sponsibilities of his office. 

I never saw him have to repel familiar- 
ity except once. This was one evening on 
the deck of a Fall River boat, when a 
stranger broke into a group about the ex- 
President, with words he would not have 
uttered had he been in a condition to real- 
ize their impertinence. Mr. Cleveland 
suddenly raised his voice in a single vibrant 
sentence ; and the episode soon came to an 
end. 

Wherever he went there was apt to be a 
crowd, — even when he was not President, 
— and always a friendly one. At times 
on the dock at Fall River there would be 
a rush upon him of hundreds of people, 
some of whom seemed determined, at least, 
to touch him, when there was not time or 
opportunity to shake hands. He was al- 
ways good-natured about it, and particu- 
larly glad to shake hands with working- 

[66] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

men. On the boat he would try to get to 
our state-rooms first, and if there was a 
choice, he would take possession of the least 
comfortable room himself, and could not be 
dislodged. 

One summer when he was living at Gray 
Gables and I at Marion, I boarded a train 
up the road, and thinking he might be on 
it went through the coaches looking for 
the ex-President. I found him, at last, 
sitting on a rough chair under a shelf, in 
the baggage-car, he having given up his 
seat in the crowded passenger-car to a 
woman and unconcernedly taken refuge 
among the bundles and baggage in the for- 
ward part of the train. 

LETTERS ABOUT FISHING, AND OTHER 
THINGS 

In a bundle of letters in Mr. Cleveland's 
delicate and individual handwriting the 
following vividly recall the old Cape Cod 

[67] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

fishing da3's, and refer, as time goes on, to 
the approaching campaign which led to 
his assuming again the duties of pubhc 
office: 

" Marion, Massachusetts. 
''June 9, 1890 
*' My dear Mr. Gilder 

" I have just received your note and the 
statement of the result of the balloting at 

the Club. I don't know when I have 

been more pleased, and somehow the thing 
is especially gratifying since the announce- 
ment of it is signed by so many kind and 
distinguished friends. I hope that if it 
chances in your way to do so, you will not 
omit telling them how I appreciated their 
signatures to the paper you sent me. 

" I started the fishing branch of the 
firm business to-day and am glad to report 
that the season promises well. I found 
here a feeling of depression in the trade 
and on every side there seemed to be the 
gravest apprehension for the future. I 
determined to test the condition and am 

[68] 




Drawn by Charlfs Dana Gibsiin 
CAPTAIN RYPEn 



Frank R. Storkton's novel '■Tin- ' jri-rry Clinnter' " was illus- 
tnitcd by Uil)suii. win) intrciluicil into liis drawings Bonie will- 
knciwn rliniiKtirs of Miirinn, Captain Kyder becoming Caji- 
tain Uarnisli ot tiiu story 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

entirely satisfied that if the industry is 
properly cared for and prosecuted with 
zeal, industry and intelligence, satisfac- 
tory returns may confidently be relied 
upon. 

" I caught 25 fish with my own rod and 
reel — averaging larger than any fish we 
caught last season, about equally divided 
in number between bass and tautogs. 

" We did not forget to send a nice mess 
to the Gilder mansion. 

" I am sorry to add that a persistent 
pursuit of blue fish for two or three hours, 
after having reached the limit I had fixed 
as to the number of bottom-fish, yielded 
no return. I renew the attack to-morrow 
and shall make the latter game the object 
of my toil. 

" Yours sincerely 

*' Grover Cleveland " 



[71] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

" Gray Gables, Buzzards Bay, Mass. 

" July 3, 1891 
" My dear Mr. Gilder 

" I am much obliged to you for the clip- 
pings you sent me. ... I suppose 
those concerning the Anti-Cleveland move- 
ment represent a feeler and the responses 
for which it was put out. How little and 
frivolous all this seems to me ! — not be- 
cause I do not realize the importance of 
everything in the remotest way connected 
with the great office of President, but be- 
cause they appear to be indices of the 
meanness and malice of men and politi- 
cians. So all this time I am wondering 
when the blue fish will be about and 
biting. 

" We have put up a nice flag staff on 
the point and have a fine large flag with 
44 stars upon it which early to-morrow 
morning will be flung to the breeze — if 
there is any. 

" We are all the time happy in our Gray 
Gables and its improvement. Every day 

[72] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

something new is brought to light which 
would if done add to its beauty and con- 
venience. All however which I contem- 
plate cannot be done immediately. . . . 
" Yours sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland " 

" Gray Gables, Buzzards Bay, Mass. 
" Aug. m, 1891 
" My dear Gilder 

"... Is n't it strange that neither 
of the political parties sees the expediency 
as well as rectitude of stepping boldly and 
defiantly to the front? . . . 
Yours sincerely 
" Grover Cleveland " 

THE " INCUBUS " 

" Gray Gables, Buzzards Bay, Mass. 
" Aug. 18, 1891 

" My dear Mr. Gilder 

«... I have frequently noticed 
[73] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

lately the tendency to make less of the 
Silver issue in the Southern papers, as well 
as in some of those published in the West. 
I am confidently looking for a return to 
common sense and conservative ideas in 
certain quarters. Some people I think 
will be directed to a proper frame of mind 
by appeals to their reason. Others will 
better appreciate the arguments which a 
thorough thrashing suggests. 

" In the meantime a great deal is going 
on among machine politicians ; and plans 
are on foot to rid the Democratic party of 
the incubus which in the seclusion of Buz- 
zards Bay ought, according to their usual 
calculations, to be counted as perfectly 
harmless. 

" I have a reel and rod here belonging 
to you, which if we don't see you very 
soon I will send to you. We are expecting 
you over ; and all send love to all. 
" Yours sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland " 
[74] 




CAPTAIN IfVUEKS ShOOl' Al.l.lE. (IF MAKION 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

The next letter acknowledges receipt of 
a picture of Captain Ryder, the skipper, 
whose services we so often enjoyed. 



" Lakewood, N. J. 

" Dec. 31, 1891 

" My dear Mr. Gilder 

" Your Christmas present to me came 
from the city here, only yesterday. I am 
very much delighted with it. Do you 
know, my ' old partner,' that when I am 
hunting in the past for pleasant things I 
always stop and take a long retrospective 
rest on the Allie? Of course you — ■ 
sick or well — are the chief figure in the 
foreground of my view ; and next comes 
Capt. Ryder. This picture helps me to 
fill in all the details. The old man looks 
as though he was considering the propriety 
of ' taking a kind o' slant and going 
around ag'in.' 

" You know how fully I appreciate your 
[77] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

thoughtfulness and kindness in sending me 
a memento I prize so much. 

" Yours most sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland " 

MR. CLEVELAND GIVES IMPORTANT ADVICE 

" Grai/ Gables, Buzzards Bay, Mass. 
" Sept. 25, 1892 
" My dear Mr. Gilder 

" ... I finished my letter of ac- 
ceptance early this morning — 3 o'c — 
and Dickinson was here to-day and left for 
New York to-night with the letter in his 
pocket. I suppose it will appear in the 
newspapers Tuesday morning. I hope 
you will like it. If you do not, I hope 
you will try to realize some of the diffi- 
culties and perplexities attending its prepa- 
ration. 

" I expect to leave here for New York 
next Thursday night and I shall probably 
remain there some time. I don't know 

[78] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

when we shall be settled there — sometime 
in October I expect. 

" My judgment is decidedly in favor of 
mv making my headquarters here for some 
time to come. I know it would be good 
politics not to go to New York for good 
until nearly the end of the campaign, but 
I do not seem to be running things much. 

" Take my advice, my dear friend, and 
never run for President. 

" I wish you were here to fish a day 
with me and go to New York with me 
Thursday night. 

" Yours very sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland '* 



" ONE NIGHT AT MARION '* 



Now to go back to " one night at Mar- 
ion." The annual local festival was on. 
It was called Marigold Day, but it covered 
several days. Fishing is most convenient 
by day, and jNIr. Cleveland could not 

5 [81] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

be induced to attend the day festivals, ac- 
knowledging his delinquency, but seeming 
to have a mischievous delight in thus 
'' playing hookey." Yet he manifested a 
friendly interest in the proceedings, and 
suggested that we get up an acrostic con- 
test, which might bring a little money to 
the fund. He asked me to write the rules 
of the contest, taking the word " ]\Iarion " 
as the subject. This I did, and the rules 
were posted, making the worst acrostic the 
winning one, and requiring that the author 
should subscribe a certain svmi to the treas- 
ury of the festival, and leave town within 
twenty-four hours. 

There were a number of entries — 
learning which. ^Mr. Cleveland made the 
further suggestion that we go up in the 
eveninc: to Mrs. Gilder's studio in the 
woods, and open the envelops. Wlien we 
had gathered in the big room, before the 
wide stone fireplace, he casually requested 
that I should act as chairman, appoint a 
committee of award, and make announce- 

[82] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

ment as to the prize-winner. This I did, 
naming, with others on the committee, 
Congressman Burnett and one of the part- 
ners of Mr. Cleveland's law firm. The 
committee retired, read the acrostics, found 
Mr. Cleveland's six-line acrostic the worst, 
and himself, therefore, the guilty prize- 
winner. It was thus made mv duty to pro- 
nounce sentence, after the reading of the 
acrostic, — of which I remember onlv the 
third and most impressive line: 

Rip ope thy cans of frenzied fire! 

The idea was that the contents of the 
cans would all be needed to paint with 
proper brilliancy the glories of " Marion." 

Before I had time to fulfil my func- 
tion, Mr. Cleveland suddenly rose to his 
feet and began a harangue of solemn pro- 
test against the entire proceeding. He 
said he had been watchincr the chairman 
for days, having shrewdly suspected that 
he was at work upon some evil design. 

[8S] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

And here it was — an attack upon the 
property and sacred hberty of a citizen ! 
He condemned the action of the chairman 
on legal and constitutional grounds. 
Money was to be demanded of a citizen at 
the very moment when It was plain that the 
festival must have seriously depleted his 
financial resources. The freedom guaran- 
teed to his person by the Constitution was 
threatened. As the speaker went on, his 
voice and manner grew more and more 
stern and menacing, subsiding only after a 
final burst of forensic indignation. 

The chairman's next-door neighbor, the 
Rev. Percy Browne, took the cue and fol- 
lowed in a similar strain. At the conclu- 
sion of Mr. Browne's witty and withering 
remarks, it occurred to the chairman to 
employ for his defense the firm with which 
Mr. Cleveland was connected. The chair- 
man thereupon took a piece of silver from 
his pocket and, handing it to ]\Ir. Charles 
W. Bangs, thus retained the eminent firm 

[84] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

of Bangs, Stetson, Tracy & MacVeagh as 
counsel.^ 

Hardly had the chairman returned to 
his seat when up rose Mr. Cleveland again, 
in a new role, all mildness and suavity. 
He declared that since his last appearance 
before that assembly " certain considera- 
tions " had presented themselves to his 
mind, which made him take a somewhat 
modified view of the case. He then en- 
tered upon a fervent eulogy of the chair- 
man, from the standpoint of character and 
good citizenship and, as he kindled with 
his theme, he turned upon Mr. Browne and 
expressed his surprise and indignation that 
the very next-door neighbor of the chair- 
man, one who must necessarily be daily 
familiar with his well-known virtues, should 
so far forget himself as to indulge in lan- 
guage of criticism and derogation. 

1 During the four years 1889 to 1892 the firm 
name was as given. The name of Grover Cleve- 
land was printed, separately, above the others. 

[85] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

The acting was so realistic that a charm- 
ing young woman in the company at one 
time whispered in my ear " He 's angry ! " 
In referring to the occurrence later, Mr. 
Cleveland said he had enjoyed practice In 
that line in his early days at Buffalo, when 
he and some of his legal friends amused 
themselves with the proceedings of moot 
courts. 

A SMALL. CALLEE. 

There was something of the actor, also, 
in an incident which occurred at Marion 
when, in the summer following his first 
Presidency, Mr. Cleveland was living in 
the cottage belonging to the Rev. Mr. 
Browne. This charming little house was 
planned by the great Richardson, just to 
show that he could handle a small prob- 
lem as well as an important one. One day 
early in the summer, while sitting on the 
recessed piazza overlooking Sippican Har- 

[86] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

bor, Mr. Cleveland was visited by a small 
youngster, unattended, who wished to pay 
his respects, with due formality, and as- 
sure the new-comer that he was very wel- 
come to Marion. Mr. Cleveland greeted 
the polite lad as solemnly as the impor- 
tance of the occasion demanded. In the 
course of the interchange of courtesies, it 
became evident that the visitor was under 
a misapprehension, for when Mr. Cleve- 
land referred to the fact that he had been 
defeated in the late election, and declared 
that the people did not want him in the 
White House any longer, the boy ex- 
claimed: " Oh, I had not heard of that. 
Sir ! " and expressed the greatest sympathy 
at the untoward event. 

I saw no betrayal of inward amusement 
on Mr. Cleveland's face. All went as 
gravely as if the colloquy had taken place 
in the Blue Room between the Chief 
Executive and a foreign ambassador. 



[89] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

THE " children's HOUR " AT THE 
WHITE HOUSE 

It will be seen that Mr. Cleveland could 
do small things well, no less than large. 
His fine and sensitive handwriting recalled 
to his friends a lightness of touch surpris- 
ing in a man of such large mold. He was 
an adept in the manipulation of delicate 
tools and of fishing-tackle. I remember 
his spending hours at Gray Gables repair- 
ing a whirling-sailor weather-vane, for the 
amusement of the children. He was apt 
to have on hand some nice piece of work 
of this sort. In the summer of 1901 he 
spent a day or two at Riverside Farm, 
Tyringham, changing a damaged, compli- 
cated, multiplying reel into a serviceable 
simple one. The performance gave him 
much satisfaction. He told how he had 
used up various nail-files, and finally suc- 
ceeded only after some good new ones had 
been brought to him from the village 

[90] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

store. The job required considerable 
engineering and patience, shifting and 
contriving. The very difficult, not to say 
unnecessary character of the labor (he 
said he must be the possessor already of 
twenty reels in all!) appeared to give him 
pleasure, and nothing more than the pro- 
duction of something " simple " — that 
quality so characteristic of his mental 
habit. His little Richard was a helper, 
when it came to trying the line on the reel. 
He had peculiar sympathy with little 
children, — his neighbors' as well as his 
own, — and it was delightful to see him in 
their company and to hear the tones of his 
voice in talking with them. At Tyring- 
ham we used to see him sitting out on the 
piazza at Riverside solemnly engaged in 
mock-fishing with Richard, consulting his 
companion gravely as to proper bait, and 
other important details of the sport, the 
boy being an apt pupil in the gentle art. 
Writing to the father of one of his boy 
acquaintances, Mr. Cleveland said: 

[91] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

" I was really very much touched by 
George's gift, and I am much comforted 
by his steadfast friendship. I flatter my- 
self it takes a pretty good man to gain and 
keep the good opinion of such a boy." 

There was a " Children's Hour " at the 
White House, during his second term, 
when, in the twilight, a little child would 
be brought into the Executive Office, and 
the work of the Government would be sus- 
pended, and much ink would be lavished, 
while two big hands helped two small ones 
in making pictures on sheets of writing- 
paper spread out upon the President's 
desk. 

Cleveland's partisanship and his 
independence 

Mr. Cleveland was decidedly a party 
man. He believed that every man should 
be active in politics, and he practised this 
doctrine from early manhood. After his 

[92] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

retirement we had a talk about this, in 
which he spoke of having had a letter from 
a young man asking for advice concerning 
party affiliations. He said he told him of 
his own experience, how he had early 
gone into local party work, standing all 
day at the polls. Mr. Cleveland added, 
" I never had anything to do with anything 
that was shady or corrupt." 

I sometimes had an amused suspicion 
that although he admired and was grateful 
to the Independents who came to his sup- 
port more than once, and although he felt 
a keen moral sympathy with them, and 
gave some of them his intimate friendship, 
the fact that they had been Republicans, 
and might easily become Republicans 
again, was just a slight regret in his mind. 
When, off on some inland fishing expedi- 
tion, he fell in with an old-time Demo- 
cratic farmer, especially one who was faith- 
ful to what the President considered 
" sound Democratic doctrine," he warmed 
up to the old fellow amazingly. 

[95] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

I do not believe he ever voted for a 
candidate outside of his party. He might 
have been willing to do so in certain cam- 
paigns in his later years, possibly, — owing 
to what he looked upon as un-Democratic 
platforms and candidates, — if he had not 
possessed an ever-present sense of obliga- 
tion because of the great honors and re- 
sponsibilities his party had bestowed upon 
him. He doubtless voted at times for 
Democrats not on the " regular ticket,"* 
but a feeling of propriety kept him from 
vehemently opposing a candidate of his 
party, even if such a candidate, in his opin- 
ion, might be leading the party into 
strange and unfortunate paths. 

THE DINNER AT THE VICTORIA HOTEL 

Yet inside of his " regularity " he mani- 
fested always a singular independence and, 
at times, even detachment. I have men- 
tioned with what nonchalance he held the 

[96] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

Tammany leaders at a distance at a time 
when he and they might easily have fallen 
into some sort of friendly relations. 

Incidents connected with the famous 
dinner at the Victoria, which Mr. Whit- 
ney urged him to attend, during the cam- 
paign of 1892, were dramatically charac- 
teristic. I was told at the time by a prom- 
inent member of the National Committee 
that Mr. Whitney became alarmed at 
Tammany's lack of interest in the can- 
vass. Mr. Cleveland was shrewdly cling- 
ing to the protective isolation of his sum- 
mer home at Gray Gables, when Mr. Whit- 
ney let him know that it was important that 
he should put something into writing by 
way of a peace proposition, or pledge, 
which would so far satisfy the Tammany 
leaders as to get them to work for the can- 
didate. 

To this, — so I was informed, — Mr. 
Cleveland's reply was, that if the National 
Committee regarded such a written pledge 
from the candidate as a necessity, they, be- 

[97] 






GROVER CLEVELAND: 

ing well acquainted with the circum- 
stances, must be right; and therefore he 
would gladly step aside so that they could 
obtain a candidate who would make the 
required pledge ! 

As the resignation of the nominee was a 
thing not to be thought of, he was then 
asked if he would meet some of the Tam- 
many leaders at dinner. Mr. Cleveland 
replied that he would meet any persons 
that the Committee thought it desirable 
for the candidate to meet. He thereupon 
came to New York and met at table his 
leading committeemen, with Mr. Croker 
and members of the Democratic machine. 
The next day one of the papers announced 
that at that dinner he had given entirely 
satisfactory assurances to Tammany Hall. 

As it happened, I was walking down 
Broadway that evening with a friend, the 
Kentucky poet, Robert Burns Wilson, and 
thought I would drop in and introduce 
him to the ex-President. Seeing his pri- 
vate secretary, Mr. Robert Lincoln 

[98] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

CBrien, in the hall at the top of the stair- 
way, I told him my errand, and .asked 
what was going on. When he informed 
me who were in council I said that I was 
sure I was not wanted ; but he insisted upon 
announcing my name, when out came Mr. 
Cleveland, to spend some time in genial 
talk with the young Kentuckian. So 
when, next morning, I read the news of 
his surrender to Tammany Hall, I could 
not believe it, not only because it would be 
out of character, but because he was, when 
I saw him, far from having the air of a 
man who was doing something against his 
will and judgment. 

Mr. Cleveland never told me just what 
happened; but I was told by one w^ho was 
there that when a certain politician made 
the demand of a written pledge, Mr. 
Cleveland flamed up, and, bringing his fist 
down on the table with a crash, declared 
that rather than do what was asked of him 
he would suffer damnation ! At this, one 
of Mr. Cleveland's leading supporters 

[99] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

" turned pale," thinking that it was " all 
up." After this unmistakable declaration 
of independence, Mr. Cleveland calmed 
down somewhat, and subsequently said that 
if he ever were President again he would 
not divide the party into personal friends 
and personal enemies, but would regard 
all alike and without partiality. It was 
this last statement to which the Tammany 
representatives clung, getting what com- 
fort out of it they could. The course of 
events, in the ensuing administration, it 
may be added, showed that no embarrass- 
ing compact whatever was entered into by 
the candidate. 

THE NIGHT BEFOEE HIS LAST ELECTION. 

Now let us go forward to the eve of Mr, 
Cleveland's second election. I wonder if 
it ever happened with a candidate before, 
in our time, that such an evening should 
be passed without the presence of a single 
[100] 




Krum « (ili.jl.jgr^iib by f^l: Br 



DR. JOSEPH D.BRYANT 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

political associate, in the undisturbed pri- 
vacy of home ! 

Dr. Joseph D. Bryant, his devoted 
friend and physician, and myself were 
alone with him in his home on Fifty-first 
Street.^ We sat a while chatting in Mr. 
Cleveland's library, till Dr. Bryant moved 
to go, when Mr. Cleveland suggested that 
we walk down to the doctor's house, then 
on Thirty-sixth Street, with him. On the 
way down Mr. Cleveland said little. 
When we turned to walk back to Fifty- 
first Street, I found him in a very solemn 
mood. I do not know how it happened, 
but we fell to talking about that dinner at 
the Victoria, when he was reported to 
have placed the New York appointments 
at the disposal of Tammany Hall. 

As I knew better, I did not hesitate to 

1 After Mr. Cleveland's residence of about 
three years at 816 Madison Avenue, he lived for 
a short time at 12 West Fifty-first Street. This 
house was next door to his friend Commodore E. 
C. Benedict. The house has since been remodeled 
inside and out. 

^ [ 103 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

remark : " I will tell you what I said to a 
friend of mine to-day: I told him that 
rather than know that Mr. Cleveland had 
done what was charged, I should prefer to 
be told that he was dead ! " Quick as a 
flash, " That is right," came Mr. Cleve- 
land's response. " What is a leader to 
us," I went on, " if he ceases to lead those 
who, in the cause of good government, 
have chosen him as their champion? " 
" You are right," again he exclaimed with 
warm sympathy and approval. 

Then he added that no person had the 
right to give the details of that dinner, but 
if they could be fully told, no one would 
have reason to disapprove his part in the 
affair. He said, furthermore, that not to 
any person had explanation of the occur- 
rence been made except to a certain promi- 
nent Republican, whom he named, one who 
had come out in his favor at the time of 
his defeat four years before.. 



[104] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

NOT WISHING TO DO BOLD THINGS 

That memorable evening, in our talk, as 
we walked up Fifth Avenue, Mr. Cleveland 
said that if defeated the next day, it simply 
meant, so far as his personal comfort was 
concerned, that he would go back four 
years earlier to private life and the undis- 
turbed happiness of his home. " If elect- 
ed," he added, " there is one kind of thing 
I hope I will not have to do ; I mean those 
* bold things ' that people sometimes talk 
about my doing." He exploded the 
phrase, " bold things," in a tone of con- 
tempt. Knowing the man, I answered: 
" I do not believe you can help it ; the 
plainest, most commonplace act of honesty 
a man can perform sometimes looks to 
others like a stroke of courage." 

" One thing I mean to do," he contin- 
ued, " and that is to bring out some of 
those younger Southern men who have 
stood up for right measures." That he 
[105] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

did give his confidence to many such men 
is now a matter of history. 

Twenty-four hours after this quiet even- 
ing with the candidate, there was a gay 
and happy scene at his house on Fifty- 
first Street, where a few personal friends 
and their wives were gathered to learn the 
result of the election. Telegi-aphic instru- 
ments had been installed up-stairs by the 
two principal companies, and despatches 
were carried by a couple of boys, friends 
of the family, down to the ladies in the 
draM'ing-room. Mr. Cleveland was out- 
wardly the least excited person in the 
house, although, early in the evening, it 
was evident that he had been reelected to 
the Presidency overwhelmingly. Later in 
the evening, a number of political friends 
and associates connected with the manage- 
ment of the campaign came to the house, 
and at about midnight the cheering crowd 
in front of the house dispersed after 
a brief offhand address by the President- 
elect. 

[106] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

BETWEEN HIS SECOND ELECTION AND 
INAUGURATION 

s 

Between the time of his second election 
and his inauguration, Mr. Cleveland was 
in a hopeful and even elated state of mind. 
One evening one or two personal friends 
accompanied him to the Manhattan Club, 
in the old Stewart mansion, since replaced 
by the building of the Knickerbocker 
Trust Company. The rooms were crowd- 
ed, and soon congratulatory speeches be- 
gan. After a while, in came Mr. Croker, 
conducted by Mr. Whitney. Mr. Croker 
sat down opposite the President-elect. In 
the very face of the Tammany leader, Mr. 
Cleveland made a ringing speech con- 
demnatory of the spoils system. After- 
ward Mr. Benedict and I walked home with 
him. He was in a very earnest mood. He 
said he believed there was a new feeling in 
the political atmosphere, and that a higher 
sense of public duty prevailed. I got the 
[107] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

impression that he was encouraged to 
think, from something Mr. Croker had 
said, that even Tammany would not em- 
barrass him very greatly with its demands. 
When the writer has been asked whether 
he knew Mr. Croker, he has been con- 
strained to answer that he enjoyed a wink- 
ing acquaintance with that somewhat 
saturnine celebrity. This statement was 
based upon the fact that that very evening, 
while a partizan spellbinder was making 
the walls resound with his familiar flow- 
ery and perfervid oratory, Mr. Croker's 
somber countenance was turned toward the 
unknown guest and suddenly made ex- 
pressive by an unmistakable contraction of 
the muscles about the right eye. 

THE SECOND INAUGURATION 

Mr. Cleveland invited Mrs. Gilder and 
me to accompany his party to Wash- 
ington for his second inauguration. 
[ 108 ] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

There was naturally a decided feeling of 
elation among those near to the new Pres- 
ident, because of the popular vindication 
of his lonely and courageous stand, espe- 
cially in the matter of sound money. 
Every one was in a hopeful mood — all 
the more so because there was so little real- 
ization of the painful political struggles 
inevitably approaching. 

The weather was harsh, and the cere- 
monies put the President's physical endur- 
ance to a severe test. Notwithstanding 
the strain, the President was as fresh in 
the evening as any member of the little, 
intimate group that gathered in the White 
House library, just over the Blue Room. 
As we were sitting there quietly, there 
gradually stole upon some of us the sus- 
picion that something was wrong. Upon 
investigation it was found that the electric 
light wires had set the silk covering of the 
east wall of the Blue Room on fire. A 
ladder was quickly brought and the fire 
was extinguished before much damage was 
[109] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

done. The family and guests did not let 
the incident mar the pleasure of the even- 
ing, and no publicity was given to the oc- 
currence. 

A BURNING QUESTION 

Just before going to Washington the 
President said to me : " Don't you suppose 
that if I did exactly what you Civil Serv- 
ice Reform people want, in every par- 
ticular, and should fail in the great, im- 
portant measures of policy, and let the 
country go to the dogs on the currency, 
you people would be the first to say the 
President had no tact? " I replied that I 
thought it would not come to that — that 
he " would probably do both." 

In the special train on the way to the 
inauguration, ]Mr. Cleveland said to me 
that nothing would please him more than 
immediately to take up matters of govern- 
ment and have all the appointments left 
[110] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

to a commission ; but he thought we were 
not ripe for that yet. He added that no 
one beheved more completely than he in 
Civil Service Reform. 

I am sure he intended from the begin- 
ning to take up the extension of the merit 
system, as he actually did, in due order. 
That was his idea : " One thing at a time " : 
Repeal of the Sherman Silver-Purchasing 
Law ; Tariff Reform ; Extension of Civil 
Service Reform. Independent leaders, 
like Carl Schurz, thought this a mistake; 
that to keep up the old system at this time 
was merely to log-roll for legislation, to 
" purchase votes by patronage." What- 
ever may be said in the way of criticism, 
and of the numerous appointments of " an- 
ti-Cleveland " men at the beginning of the 
second administration, I believe it was all 
in pursuance of the belief that this was 
the reasonable method — one reform at a 
time; no violent departure from political 
custom, thus creating at once an obstruct- 
ive Congress. 

[Ill] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

In detail this policy sometimes led to 
unfortunate results. It may even, possi- 
bly, have been mistaken as a whole. It 
led to some things that were certainly re- 
pugnant to the views and tastes of Re- 
formers. I am not intending any further 
defense than is implied in the record of the 
historic fact that Cleveland acted accord- 
ing to a well-considered plan, honestly 
adopted. 

Mr. Schurz was out of sympathy with 
the method on grounds of general public 
policy, and with respect to the cause of 
" good government." He thought that to 
antagonize the politicians entirely was just 
as well as to antagonize them pai-tly ; and 
that a President's first duty was to admin- 
ister and not to legislate. One of the 
President's former Cabinet officers, a Dem- 
ocrat of the Refonn stamp, also took this 
ground, but was especially exercised as to 
the character of appointments, and what 
he thought to be the President's too great 
anxiety to recognize all branches of the 
[112] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

party, including the worst sections of it. 

Meantime, the President thought that 
while he must be sure that those who sup- 
ported him should not be proscribed, he 
also had a right to insist that those who 
opposed him should not be proscribed. 
He got to be somewhat annoyed by the 
constant iteration of the plea, " I was your 
friend," " I was always a Cleveland man," 
coming from applicants for office in every 
part of the country. 

The following letter indicates his feel- 
ing on this subject, in the midst of the 
usual pressure for office preceding the in- 
auguration : 

" Lakemood, N. J 

" Feb'ij 18, 1893 

"... I wonder if I am to be 
called on to wade up to my ears in the 
political disturbances of all the States. 

" I like my ' friends,' but if I am to be 
charged with the care of them in every 
locality and against all attacks, I shall cer- 
tainly find no time to do anything else. 
[ 113 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

" But I suppose we shall manage it in 
some fashion. 

" Yours sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland.'' 

The ex-secretary to whom I refer held 
that the question whether a Democrat 
should support Cleveland, or one of the 
opposing leaders in the party, was, to a 
great extent, a test of character. This 
Cleveland was slow to admit. As time 
went on, many of his appointees violently 
opposed almost every principle with which 
the Administration was identified, and I 
noticed that he began to feel that, his origi- 
nal enemies having in some localities got 
the lion's share of offices, it was no more 
than right to lean the other way during 
the last half of his term. 



TILI. TWO o'clock in THE MORNING 



Mr. Josiah Quincy of Boston, who was 
looked upon as favorable to Civil Service 
[114] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

Reform, was taken into the Administra- 
tion as Assistant Secretary of State, ap- 
parently with a view of assisting in mak- 
ing whatever changes might be considered 
necessary in the consular service. It 
seemed as if the very fact that the work 
was done with characteristic Cleveland 
promptness and " strict attention to busi- 
ness " brought down upon Mr. Quincy's 
head the charge of having " looted the 
consular service." 

It may have been, as some charged, that 
Mr. Quincy was " not a good judge of 
men." His advice may or may not have 
been wise in every instance, — I do not 
know, — but for the policy itself it seemed 
to me that if there were any blame, it 
should attach to the President and not to 
his assistant. This is the way that Mr. 
Cleveland himself looked upon it. 

One night after the resignation of Mr. 

Quincy (he did not expect to remain in 

office) the President and I sat up till two 

o'clock in the morning talking over vari- 

[115] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

ous matters, but especially the consular 
appointments. He went over the list, ex- 
plaining in each case the reasons for reten- 
tion or substitution. He told me that he 
had worked over these appointments per- 
sonally with Mr. Qulncy, and he thought 
the Assistant Secretary had acted with 
perfect honesty and good faith. 

AN EMBARRASSING SITUATION. 

In the whole matter of the Civil SeiTice 
I found myself in a somewhat embarrass- 
ing situation, owing to my connection 
with the reform movement on the one 
side, and my friendly relations, on the 
other, with the Chief Executive, whose ac- 
tion in regard to appointments did not 
always meet with the approval of my Civil 
Service Reform friends and associates. 

I did not feel called upon to abuse the 
President's hospitality by direct and per- 
sonal appeals, even in behalf of a reform 
[116] 



111 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

in which I was very deeply interested. I 
naturally felt that my position on the sub- 
ject being perfectly understood by him, 
whatever personal influence could do was 
being tacitly exerted; and besides I was 
sure he would somehow manage to set the 
reform well ahead. 

Once when I was on my way to visit 
the President in Washington, I stopped 
over at Baltimore as a guest of the local 
Civil Service Association. There, before 
myself speaking, I listened to some pretty 
sharp criticism of the President for certain 
recent Maryland appointments. When it 
came my turn to speak I said that per- 
haps I had a keener sense than some others 
of the difficulties that beset well-meaning 
executives ; but that if Mr. Cleveland did 
not, before the expiration of his Presi- 
dency, do more than any other President 
had yet done for Civil Service Reforai, I 
should be " the most disappointed man in 
the United States." 

While on this visit to the President I 
[117] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

seized the opportunity of telling him about 
the Baltimore meeting, and repeated to 
him what I had said as to my expectations 
concerning his future action. With the 
greatest warmth he approved of this state- 
ment of faith, and this I took to be quite 
sufficient declaration of his intentions, 
and a virtual pledge that we should not 
be disappointed in regard to the final out- 
come. 

With definite intention, also, I repeated 
to him what I had recently said to Mr. 
Schurz, namely, that I believed that just 
as Mr. Lincoln " got even " with Carl 
Schurz in regard to the latter's letter of 
criticism of Lincoln's attitude in rela- 
tion to slavery, by issuing his Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation, so Mr. Cleveland 
would answer the criticisms of the same 
Carl Schurz by greatly extending the 
merit system in the Civil Service ! 

Mr. Cleveland, on hearing this, heart- 
ily exclaimed, " You are right ! " And 
again I felt that a complete promise had 
[118] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

been given — a promise thoroughly ful- 
filled when, later, the wide extensions of the 
rules were made, signalizing the largest 
advance that had been accomplished in the 
progress of the reform. 

IN TIME OF STRESS 

In the fall of 1894, at the close of a visit 
at Gray Gables, and just as I was leaving 
the house to take the train for home, I 
quoted a word of criticism or suggestion 
from Mr. Schurz, President of the Civil 
Service Reform League. I fear I chose 
a very unfortunate moment for this sec- 
ond-hand " advice," as it was a time when 
the President was under very great strain. 
He was hurt by my quotation, and made 
a remark about the advisability of resign- 
ing and letting some of us, including Mr. 
Schurz, run the government. This was 
the only time in our acquaintance when 
he showed irritation at anything I said or 
7 [ 121 1 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

wrote to him, and I mention the incident 
now because the letter I received imme- 
diately after my departure is so touch- 
ingly characteristic : 

" Gray Gables^ Buzzards Bay, Mass. 

" Oct. 13, 1894. 
" My dear Mr. Gilder 

" From something said to me, I 

fear, as much as fear can displace aston- 
ishment, that you went away from here 
feeling uncomfortable on account of my 
very poor joke about the Stevenson Cab- 
inet. 

" My position is such a grievous one and 
my work is so altogether gloomy, that I 
suppose I never ought to attempt pleas- 
antry. 

" You will perhaps consider my privi- 
lege of saying things quite direct about the 
Democratic party. Concerning that party 
as represented by its organization in the 
State of New York and perhaps in other 
[122] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

quarters, I said that the logical thing for 
me to do, if I were to be in agreement 
with the conduct of that organization, 
was to resign and hand the executive 
branch to Mr. Stevenson ; and then to re- 
lieve this statement of seriousness, I com- 
mitted the great indiscretion of attempting 
a joke by saying that when the contin- 
gency arose I would try to get you a place 
in the new Cabinet. 

" I am very sorry and will steer clear of 
rocks of that kind in the future. 

" I hope it is not necessary for me 
to assure you how much I am com- 
forted by your constant and disinterested 
friendship and how much I am encour- 
aged, or at least saved from utter discour- 
agement, by any approval I am able to 
win from you and men like you. I 
know too there is a God but I do not 
know his purposes, nor when their results 
will appear. I know the clouds will roll 
away, but I do not know who, before 
[123] 






GROVER CLEVELAND: 

that time, will be drowned in their 
floods. 

** Yours most sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland.'* 

CLOSE AT HAND 

,^ 

Cleveland's Second Administration was 
crowded with issues to meet which re- 
quired all the fortitude of a strong nature. 
Early in the Administration occurred the 
complication of ill health, which made the 
strain greatly harder to bear. The repeal 
of the Sherman Silver Act was not accom- 
plished without tremendous effort in which 
the President was the dominating influ- 
ence. The Wilson Bill reducing the tariff' 
was, in detail, so great a disappointment 
that the President let it become a law 
without his signature. The repression of 
the prolonged riot at Chicago ; the arrest- 
ing of financial disaster by the bond issues ; 
the complication with Great Britain in the 
[124.] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

Venezuelan matter ; the negotiation of an 
arbitration treaty with Great Britain, 
which failed of confirmation by the Sen- 
ate ; the constant fight with the spoilsmen ; 
and the drift of the President's party away 
from what he considered sound financial 
policies — these, and many minor troubles, 
were a great draft upon the courage, reso- 
lution, and endurance of a conscientious 
Chief Executive. Many of the President's 
larger achievements during this period have 
already been warmly approved not only by 
his political supporters, but by succeeding 
Presidents of the opposite party. The im- 
pression made close at hand, by the atti- 
tude and aims of President Cleveland, are 
reflected in the following letter written by 
me from the White House in the winter of 
1894: 

" Executive Mansion, Washington. 
" 2d February, 1894, 
" My dear R. U. J. 

"... I have spent many hours 
[ 125] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

with the President alone, driving ; and have 
besides seen a great deal of him in the 
house. From others, as well as himself, 
I have learned details of the struggle in 
relation to silver — showing the tremen- 
dous moral force he put forth successfully 
at that time in behalf of what we believe 
to have been the right issue. His health 
and spirits are both better than they are 
supposed to be ; the former entirely satis- 
factory, the latter showing the immense 
power of resistance inherent in a nature 
convinced that aims and conscience are 
right — even if the judgment may be con- 
sciously subject to correction. 

" I am fortified in my faith that along 
the general lines of Civil Service Reform 
he is acting up to a sincere policy — 
whether right or not as to methods — i.e. 
whether right as to times and seasons or 
not. I do not find the petulance that is 
charged, or unreasonableness; but a most 
solemn and earnest conviction of duty and 
[126] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

of terrible responsibility. Of such a man, 
in such harassing circumstances, it is un- 
fair to judge hastily. We must look at 
the large results and it is too early yet to 
judge of these. Already people are begin- 
ning to forget that it was one man, against 
tremendous odds and a dangerous plot, 
that bended his back and lifted the silver 
load off the country." 



" TAKING THE BULL BY THE HORNS " 



In February, 1895, I went to Washing- 
ton, under the weather, for a little vaca- 
tion. The President made me leave the 
hotel and come over to the White House, 
where I was nursed and doctored. I re- 
mained there for several days convales- 
cing, and detained by a blizzard which 
interrupted communication with New 
York. Their guest's birthday thus arriv- 
ing in the midst of blizzards and bond- 
[127] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

issues, an impromptu celebration was 
gotten up for him, with cakes and candles. 
It was at a time when a financial panic 
was threatened and resort had already 
been taken to the issue of large blocks 
of bonds by the Government. I found 
the President in a most anxious state of 
mind. 

On Tuesday evening, February 5, I 
was invited to accompany the Presidential 
family to a Cabinet dinner at the house of 
Postmaster General Bissell. After going 
out with the ladies, I remarked to Colonel 
Lamont, then Secretary of War, that I 
thought I had better not return with the 
men to the dining-room as there might be 
some confidential business on hand. He, 
however, insisted upon my coming back, 
and in a moment I found myself present 
at an important Cabinet meeting. The 
President was seated at the head of the 
table, with the Secretary of the Treasury 
at his left hand. He asked a few questions 
as to what had been done in Congress that 
[128] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

day ; exclaimed, " That don't help us ! " 
and, with a look of resolution on his face 
which I shall never forget, he brought his 
fist down on the table, and said, " I be- 
lieve in taking the bull by the horns ! " 
adding that he favored coming out that 
week with an issue of bonds of so many 
millions. There was immediately general 
acquiescence, whereupon the Cabinet 
meeting was over. 

The next day the President joked me 
about being present at a Cabinet meeting. 
" We did n't swear you in, last night," he 
said ; " you have a good chance to make a 
pile of money in Wall Street ! " To which 
I replied : " I know that, very well, and 
am studying how to go about it ! " 

GLIMPSES OF THE WHITE HOUSE AND 
WOODLEY 

One springtime night, during the Sec- 
ond Administration, INIrs. Gilder and I 
[129] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

arrived late in Washington on our way to 
visit the President's family at Woodley, 
his then out-of-town home. We expected 
to stay all night at the hotel and go out to 
Woodley the next morning. But we were 
met by William Sinclair, the White House 
steward, and told that we were to spend 
the night at the Executive Mansion. 

It was a balmy night. The White 
House gardens were odorous ; it was like 
summer. The cool white mattings were 
down, and the stately old house, in the 
mysterious and lovely moonlight, was 
more beautiful and noble than ever. We 
had never before been there in the absence 
of the family, and it was a strange experi- 
ence — all the more strange because on the 
train, coming down to Washington, we 
happened to have been reading " The 
Prisoner of Zcnda." 

The next morning, Sunday, I went into 
the vacant office of the Private Secretary, 
]\Ir. Thurber, and left there a proclama- 
tion to the effect that, having arrived at 
[130] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

read me the letter from Governor Stone 
of Mississippi.^ He said the reception of 
that letter seemed to him providential. He 
believed there was a Providence in such 
things. He had seen, on the whole, an 
admirable public utterance by Stone on 
the currency. Soon after this came the 
letter complaining (with a good deal of 
justice, the President thought) about the 
Mississippi appointments of men who 
were opposed to every policy of the Ad- 
ministration. This gave him the oppor- 
tunity to write a letter to a Democrat in 
favor of sound money, and show the bad 
policy of giving such a vantage-ground to 
the enemy. 

" Mr. Cleveland said he had now done 
his whole duty in this matter and he did 
not expect to keep on making public state- 
ments on the subject. He would, of 
course, be charged with breaking up the 
party ; but the silver money men had begun 

1 See " The Public Papers of Grover Cleveland," 
letter to the Hon. J. M. Stone, April 26, 1895. 
[135] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

it, and he had only done what was right 
" I said that of course they would ac- 
cuse him of disrupting the party, but that 
the leaders of the Democracy, like Fair- 
child and Governor Russell, felt that his 
record was about all there was that would 
save the party in the historical continuity 
of principles; they thought that the only 
hope was to rally the party, in the future, 
to the sound views of their Democratic 
President." 

CIVIL SERVICE VENEZUELA CUBA 

A THIRD TERM 

I paid the Clevelands two visits in the 
fall of 1895 — one at Gray Gables, the 
other at Woodley. The President told me, 
at Woodley, that by the time this Adminis- 
tration was ended, about every office that 
could be put under Civil Service rules 
would be placed thereunder. We talked 
a good deal about jingoism, and both of us 
[136] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

with great contempt for the hectoring at- 
titude toward foreign countries. Knowing 
his sentiments on the subject, I felt as- 
sured when I heard, later, when abroad, 
of the message concerning Venezuela, that 
it was not dictated by the jingo spirit, but 
that his action was honestly arrived at, 
and all the more sincerely on account of 
the President's general sentiment against 
jingoism. I quote from my notes: 

" With the President from Friday 31st 
July, 1896, until Tuesday, 4th August, 
fishing at Peter's Pond; also off Wareham 
on Monday. We came back from Mash- 
pee on Saturday night to Gray Gables. 
Monday night, the 3d, had an interesting 
talk, especially about Cuba. He told me 
of the visit of the sub-committee of the 
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. 
He asked them why they did not acknowl- 
edge the belligerency of the insurgents If 
they thought it wise; the Congress had 
the power to bring about war ; it would 
be the duty of the Executive to obey. Oh, 
[137] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

no, they did not wish that; then he ex- 
plained how the Executive had pushed the 
American demands as to damages, treat- 
ment of prisoners claiming American pro- 
tection, and the like. He thought they 
went away content, after seeing the actual 
difficulties, to let the matter remain in the 
hands of the Executive. 

" The President went on to tell me all 
the difficulties of the position. He was 
willing to go a great way in insisting upon 
humanity — in fact, he feared there were 
some outrages on both sides, if the truth 
were known. But in a general way he 
felt it incumbent upon him to be ex- 
tremely careful, as the public mind seemed 
to be in an inflammable state and a spark 
might kindle a conflagration. He said 
there seemed to be an epidemic of insanity 
in the country just at this time. 

" One day we were discussing the 
chances of international arbitration. He 
said that we should have it soon, unless 
Salisbury prevented it. 
[ 138 ] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

" With regard to the third term, the 
President said that there was never a time 
when he would have accepted the third 
term even if it could have been given to 
him without an election. He did not de- 
cline, because it was not offered to him. 
Nevertheless, on two different occasions, 
he came near making an opportunity and 
writing a letter giving his sentiments, but 
finally concluded not to do so. He said 
that in all his consultations he was not 
advised to do so. He had one talk, for 
instance, with Colonel A. K. McClure, in 
which the colonel at first thought he had 
better, and afterward changed his mind 
during the conversation. I asked the 
President's secretary whether any prom- 
inent person, who had the right to ask, 
had written to the President desiring to 
know his mind on the subject, and he 
said that no one had. I also asked the 
secretary whether there was any move- 
ment around any person, with which 
movement the President's non-action might 
« [ 141 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

be supposed to interfere. He said there 
was not such a movement. 

" As to the Bryan convention and the 
free-silver craze, the President said he 
might have an opportunity of calhng at- 
tention to the Chicago platform and ask- 
ing Democrats whether they found it to 
represent the real principles of Democ- 
racy." 

"the whole barrel is going!" 

In the winter of 1897 I had several long 
talks with the President in the White 
House, till one o'clock, — once till nearly 
half-past two, — in the morning, always 
leaving him fresh and still going on with 
his work. I quote from my notes : 

" He said that there was less disinter- 
estedness in Congress now than there was 
twelve years ago. It seemed to be no use 
for him to call attention to the lavish ex- 
penditure of public money ; his vetoes were 
[142] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

almost always overridden as soon as they 
could get at them. They seemed to be 
going through the old pension list and in- 
creasing former pensions at a fearful rate. 
He thought he mig-ht have a calculation 
made as to where this would land us. 
' Don't the American people see how their 
money is going? It is n't ' out at the 
bung ' — the whole barrel is going." 

THE ARBITRATION TREATY THAT FAILED 

" He went over the matter of the treaty 
of arbitration with Great Britain. He 
said it had been all done (so far as the 
negotiations went between the contesting 
parties) in such a good spirit. It had been 
educational. It was the Lord's own mercy 
that the matter had been placed in Paunce- 
fote's hands. Pauncefote was very much 
in earnest about it. They had gradually, 
through Pauncefote, brought Salisbury to 
their way of thinking; — the cable had 
[143] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

been used a good deal. It would put us in a 
very bad light before the world if it should 
be thrown out ; but he had had no real 
confidence in its ratification by the Senate 
from the beginning. At one time he had 
thought of saying so publicly, thinking 
that perhaps the Senate would in that case 
be more likely to take a favorable view of 
it — and then he thought better of it — 
concluded it would be dangerous to fool 
with the thing in that way." 



GENiERAl. SHERIDAN THE PRESIDENT'S 

TONE 

" One night he went over the whole Chi- 
cago riot matter — apropos of Miles and 
Schofield. . . . Once when there was 
trouble with the Indians he said to Sheri- 
dan that he would feel better if he were 
on the spot, and Sheridan said he would 
go. ' When can you go ? ' said the Presi- 
[ 144] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

dent. ' I will start to-night,' said Sheri- 
dan, and he did. Sheridan, he said, made 
an excellent report, which bore excellent 
fruit. 

" The President seems as much inter- 
ested in the present and the immediate 
future of the country as ever. He thinks 
the sound money propaganda should be 
kept up with vigor, especially in the South. 
He talked a great deal about this and, in 
arranging for his own next public appear- 
ance in New York in response to invita- 
tions, he evidently wished to help along the 
cause as much as possible. 

" There is, as usual, a great contrast be- 
tween the President's tone and that of 
most of the public men, — or private citi- 
zens for the matter of that, — whom one 
meets in Washington. Cynicism and in- 
difference prevail. But ever since I first 
talked with him here in the White House, 
ten or eleven years ago, I have found the 
same intensity of interest in the best things, 
[145] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

— and the same surprise at not being met 
more cordially in the attempt to serve the 
country in a disinterested spirit. He is 
strenuous and combative, when he thinks 
he is right, in action, but not in personal 
tone toward those whom he meets ; he may 
be firm with them, but tries to win by 
appeals to fairness, to duty, and to reason. 
He is himself reasonable and open to 
conviction — and is always rather in- 
clined to take an optimistic view from his 
faith in ' the people,' and his conviction 
that all honest men ought to agree in 
patriotic spirit if not in detail as to meth- 
ods." 

LETTERS FUOM AN ANXIOUS EXECUTIVE 

Quotations from letters of Mr. Cleve- 
land written during his second term give 
an indication of the heavy burdens he was 
carrying, which, indeed, all Presidents 
must carr}': 

[146] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

" Executive Mansion^ Washington. 

" Oct. 8, 1893 
" My dear Gilder 

"... I am suffering many per- 
plexities and troubles and this tenn of the 
Presidency has cost me so much health and 
vigor that I have sometimes doubted if I 
could carry the burden to the end. My 
determination is to live and I believe God 
has put the belief in my mind that I can 
still be of use to my country. 

" Whatever happens I am grateful and 
happy in my home. Mrs. Cleveland and 
both children are as well as they can be. 
" With much love to Mrs. Gilder and 
the children and especial remembrances to 
my friend George — I am 

" Yours most sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland." 

*' Executive Mansion, Washington. 
" Jan. ^, 189 Jf, 
"... I am thinking these days 
that I have my full share of perplexities 
[149] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

— Indeed I am never without them — and 
I am also thinking that they can be met 
in but one way and that is by keeping the 
heart and conscience right and following 
their lead. But I must not preach. . . . 
" Your sincere friend 

" Grover Cleveland" 

'^^ Executive Mansion, Washington. 
" May 3, 1894. 

"... I thank you too for the 
opportunity to read the forthcoming arti- 
cle on the Consular Service. Nobody 
would be better pleased than I to see it 
reasonably hedged about, 

" We are getting on pretty well. In 
the sphere of public affairs I feel that I 
have my full share of trouble and pei'plex- 
ity but I have never lost hope and have 
never doubted that the end would com- 
pensate for all. This will certainly be 
so and even to-day the clear sky is show- 
ing. 

" The American people ought to have 
[150] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

learned a valuable lesson. I don't know 
whether they have or not. 

*' I wonder if a true history of the last 
fourteen months will ever be written. It 
is crammed full of instructive things. . . . 
" Your sincere friend 

" Grover Cleveland." 

" Executive Mansion, Washington. 
"Dec. 26, 1894, 

"... I hope in days to come we 
may together explore the nooks of my 
lunch basket, on the shore of Peter's Pond 
or in some care-free spot. 

*' I am so depressed during these days 
that the thought of my lack of deserving 
any thought of my friends is strangely 
mixed with the gratification caused by 
the evidence that you have thought of 
me. 

" I am sure I never was more completely 

in the right path of duty than I am now 

and more sure I never did better public 

service than now ; but it is depressing 

[151] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

enough to have no encouragement from 
any quarter. 

" I behove I shah hold out, but I doubt 
if I shaU advise any one to lose the sup- 
port of party in the hope of finding 
support among those who beyond parti- 
zanship profess a patriotic desire for good 
government. 

" I want now to live until my task, un- 
dertaken to suit good people, is done and 
until your work for the public good is also 
done ; and then I want to see much of you 
and such as you. 

" Will you give my love to Mrs. Gilder 
and the children and believe me 

" Yours very sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland." 

*' Executive Mansion, Washington. 

" March 23, 1895 

** . . . As day after day passes, 

full of trouble and annoyances with such 

small surface results, I find myself again 

[ 152 ] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

and again saying ' How flat, stale and un- 
profitable.' 

" If occasional words of encouragement 
did not reach me like a breath of fresh air 
in this dreadful atmosphere, I would be 
in danger of sinking into a condition of 
mere anxiety for my release from the 
things that surround me here. 

" But two years more will quickly pass. 

" I hope you will make it your business 
to secure for yourself a good holiday this 
summer. It 's one of the things you need. 
I am looking forward to the first of June 
as the time I hope my vacation will be- 
gin. . . . Sincerely yours 

"Grover Cleveland.^* 

" Gray Gables. Buzzards Bay. Mass. 

" July W, 1896. 

" I see you are having considerable to 
say about over-crowded houses ^ since your 

1 Referring to tenement-house work. 
[155] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

return from abroad. There 's a house up 
here which is not over-crowded but which 
I think you should examine. Indeed I 
shall not feel safe and comfortable until 
you do. 

" I have supposed of course you would 
be up and have been expecting some 
intimation from you on the subject, 
though I suppose for a while after your 
return to the country, you would sub- 
mit to the ' demnition grind ' of waiting 
work. 

" I think now however it is about time 
for you to bust the harness and cut for 
Buzzards Bay air. 

" I am just about starting to attend 
Ex-Gov. Russell's funeral. What a loss ! 
There are few men in the country who it 
seems to me could not have been better 
spared. 

" Mrs. Cleveland and her mother who 
is with us send affectionate remembrances. 
Our youngest — a year old a few days 
[156] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

ago — just proudly trotted past my win- 
dow. 

" Yours very sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland." 

The note of disappointment and de- 
spondency in some of the letters above was 
by no means constant. I have never seen 
such care in a human face as I have seen 
in his at times of harassing and over- 
whelming pressure. But President Cleve- 
land had the strong man's love of action ; 
and the most perplexing situations often 
led him to his most pronounced and suc- 
cessful decisions — decisions which now 
and again brought to him lasting satisfac- 
tion and wide-spread acclaim. His fishing 
and hunting excursions, while entered 
upon with appetite, were also considered 
by him a duty ; for it was only on these 
little vacations that he was able to obtain 
the exercise, and release from mental 
strain, that kept him alive, and made him 
[157] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

capable of the application which was a 
liabit as well as a matter of conscience 
with him. I have heard him say that 
while on the water he could cast his public 
cares aside, but they would come crushing 
down upon him the moment he put his 
foot on dry land. 

THE OTHER END OF THE HOUSE APPRE- 
CIATION OF FRIENDSHIP MR. 

SCHURZ A HARD MASTER 



During the second term he had a little 
family about him, and this was a never- 
ending source of refreshment. Often, 
in trying times, he would answer inquiries 
as to the welfare of his family with the 
remark : " They are as well as they can be. 
It is this end of the house that troubles 
me. If things should go wrong at the 
other end I would feel like quitting the 
place for good." 

The following letter was written apro- 
[ 158 ] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

pos of a paper entitled, " Our Fellow-Citi- 
zen of the White House," which was 
being prepared by Mr. Clarence C. Buel, 
Assistant Editor, for the INIarch, 1897, 
number of The Century. 

" Executive Mansion, Washington. 
"Dec. ^7, 1896 
" My dear Mr. Gilder 

"... Of all men in the world you 
know best that I do honestly try to ' keep 
the compass true,' and I am convinced that 
you appreciate better than others, how mis- 
leading the fogs sometimes are. I fre- 
quently think what a glorious boon om- 
niscience would be to one charged with 
the Chief Magistracy of our nation. 

" I can only thank you from the bottom 
of my heart, for this last, of many, proofs 
of your friendship, and assure you of the 
comfort and encouragement it has been to 
me. I should be afflicted if my barome- 
ter ever indicated anything but ' clear 
weather ' in our relations. 

[ l'^^9 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

" I have been afraid sometimes since I 
left you here a week ago, that you might 
not feel like bothering us too much, in the 
preparation of the article you had in 
proof. I want to say to you that you 
must draw on us to any extent you desire, 
to make the article suit you. Of course 
your magazine instinct fits you to judge 
as to the items that will interest readers 
but you must understand that everything, 
personal or otherwise, that would be at all 
suitable for such publication is at your 
disposal. For example I have been some- 
times surprised and irritated by the accusa- 
tion or intimation that I lacked in appre- 
ciation of friendship and did not recognize 
sufficiently what others did for me. Of 
course this is as far from the truth as it 
can be and can only have its rise in a re- 
fusal on my part to compensate friends by 
misappropriation from the trust funds of 
public duty. To this I plead guilty on 
many charges ; but no one is more delighted 
[160] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

than I when friendship and public duty 
travel in the same way. . . . 

" Having made these suggestions I am 
so impressed that they are useless and fool- 
ish that I feel like telling you to utterly 
disregard them, except as they indicate my 
willingness to do anything you wish in the 
business. 

" I was delighted in my late interview 
with Mr. Schurz to see that he had re- 
covered from his Venezuelan scare and 
was quite satisfied apparently with the 
Civil Service reform situation. He is a 
good and useful man and I am always 
pleased to have him friendly, but as I told 
him once, he is * a hard master.' I only 
hope he will gain the best information at- 
tainable and be just. I know he will try 
to be. 

" This is a horribly long letter. . . . 
*' Sincerely your friend 

" Grover Cleveland." 

9 [ 163 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

WHAT PRESIDENT CLEVELAND SAID TO 

PRESIDENT MCKINLEY, AND 

SPEAKER REED 

One of the most strangely interesting 
things that can happen in a country like 
ours is the private meeting and conversa- 
tion between an outgoing and an incoming 
President. No President has had two 
talks with successors except Cleveland. 
He told me that, at the time of McKin- 
ley's inauguration, he said to the new Pres- 
ident that he hoped that his administra- 
tion would be successful, and that he would 
not have so many reasons as he (Cleve- 
land) to feel glad when he came to go out. 
At this Mr. McKinley was most sympa- 
thetic, saying that Mr. Cleveland's place 
in history was assured. 

At the time of the Dingley high tariff 
bill Mr. Cleveland spoke to me as follows 
(I quote from my notes) : 

" Just as they parted, Mr. McKinley 
[164.] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

thanked him most warmly for all he had 
done to make things smooth for him, and 
said ; ' Now, Mr. Cleveland, is n't there 
something you would like me to do for 
you? ' Mr. Cleveland thanked him and 
replied : ' No, Mr. President, there is noth- 
ing that I want personally ; but I beg you 
to remember that the time may come again 
when it will be necessary for another union 
of the forces which supported honest 
money, against this accursed heresy ; and 
for this reason I ask j^ou to use all your 
influence against any such extreme action 
as would prevent such a union.' 

" McKinley replied that he fully appre- 
ciated the danger and the necessity ; and 
that he had already begun to act in that 
direction in the make-up of his cabinet. 
Cleveland said they were both very much 
moved, and both spoke with a great deal 
of feeling. This was their last conversa- 
tion. 

" Cleveland had had a conversation with 
Speaker Reed on the same subject. Cleve- 
[165] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

land said that there had never been greater 
patriotism shown than that of the honest- 
money Democrats in the last election. 
Reed said he had acknowledged that in his 
speeches. Cleveland added that it was 
very important to keep in mind that some- 
thing might occur that would confront us 
with the same or greater danger again in 
four years. For this reason there should 
be no extreme treatment of the tariff ques- 
tion. He would be in favor of a tax on 
beer, for instance. Reed said that would 
be dangerous politically. Cleveland ac- 
knowledged that, but how if the responsi- 
bility were divided politically ? Reed said : 
' Oh, give us good times, and all will come 
out right.' " 

DEED, NOT RECORD 

I have spoken of Mr. Cleveland's re- 
fusing to worry about the record of his 
correspondence. This was characteristic 
[166] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

of his whole attitude as to record. I have 
known many pubHc men, and I never knew 
so pronounced an instance of absorption 
in deed and disregard of record. During 
his active hfe he was too intent upon the 
making of history to give any thought to 
recording it. 

In the days of " records " and " claims," 
it was bracing to find a man who let the 
accomplishment pass from his hand with- 
out the slightest anxiety about its history. 
His theory of life was to do the best he 
could each day, and then to stop worrying 
about it — and not to worry at all about 
telling the story of it. 

This trait was only one phase of an 
admirable absence of self-consciousness or 
taint of vanity. From my point of view, 
he carried his indifference too far, and I 
was rejoiced when, after his final retire- 
ment from office, his connection with 
Princeton University led to his preparation 
of the lectures which resulted in a volume 
entitled " Presidential Problems," in which 
[167] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

four among his most important public acts 
are carefully narrated. 

It can well be believed that he was fre- 
quently urged by intimates and others to 
make autobiographic notes. It was put 
to him by different interests in a way that 
would have been as little onerous as pos- 
sible and very profitable, and sometimes he 
seemed to be on the point of yielding to 
importunity. For at times he realized, 
especially as a young family grew up 
about him, and when false statements ap- 
peared in books, that correctness of record 
was due to his descendants and to those 
who had trusted him. And sometimes it 
occurred to him that the story of his career 
might be an incentive to patriotic serv- 
ice. 

But the habit of his mind not to think of 
history, but of act, was too fixed, and he 
never reached the decision to write down 
the interesting and racy details with which 
his private conversation abounded. I am 
sorry for this, but I am reconciled to it, 
[168] 



4 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

in admiration of his aversion to all forms 
of publicity and self -exploitation. 

" PLAYING POLITICS " 

Once, at Princeton, when talking about 
reminiscences, he said he hated to write 
anything of that sort in the first person. 
He thought that there were things in his 
life the telling of which would be of serv- 
ice to young men. He said: "The more 
I study my own career, there seems to me 
something that has had to do with it — call 
it Providence or what you will. This talk 
about the importance of ' playing politics ' 
— look at the men who have played it. 
Have they got as far, after all, as I 
have? '* He added that he believed pro- 
foundly in the effect of good early teach- 
ings and associations in the family. 
" You may not always live up to what you 
learn in this way, but the good influence 
always remains with you," he said. 

After his retirement he wrote a good 
[169] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

deal, from time to time, on fishing and 
hunting and on various timely public sub- 
jects. But he refused the offer of a salary 
from a New York periodical to write mis- 
cellaneous essays twice a month for one 
year. The price was not large, but he 
did not object to that, but to assuming an 
obligation to produce " copy " regularly. 
He thought the task difficult and incongru- 
ous. 

The following letters refer to certain 
attempts to turn his attention to the record 
of his public life: 

" Executive Mansion, Washington. 
''Nov. W, 1896 
*' . . . You are quite right. 
There are now three projects on foot to 
serve me up and help people to breast or 
dark meat, with or without stuffing. The 
one I have heard the most of, was, when I 
last got a sight of it, running towards 

Prof. ... I 've forgotten his 

name. 

[170] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

" I don't know in the shuffle what will 
become of me and my poor old battered 
name, but I think perhaps I ought to look 
after it a little. 

" I shall probably avail myself of your 
kindness. 

" Yours sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland " 

" joy's FULIi SOUI. 1.IES IN THE DOING " 

" Executive Mansion, Washington. 
"January 16, 1897 
"... Of course you know what 
my desire would be in regard to biography 
&c. I have been so prodded by public 
duty for a number of years past that I 
have had no opportunity to look after the 
presei'vation of anything that might be 
useful in writing history. ... * Joy's 
full soul lies in the doing ' ^ has perforce 
been the motto over my mantel. 

i"TroiIus and Cressida." 

[171] 



GROVER CLEVELAND 



« 



It is late to gather things, but I thank 
you for your hint and will as far as possi- 
ble act upon it. 

" I feel in this matter as I do in regard 
to my White House portrait. I am not 
anxious to have one on exhibition, but if 
it is insisted on I naturally would be glad 
to be represented in a way that would be 
recognizable. 

" Yours very sincerely 

" Grover Cleveland " 



" MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY WRITTEN ON 
THEIR HEARTS " 



J8 

« Princefon, Jan. 28, 1905 
"... You need not thank me, as 
you did in your last letter, for my co-oper- 
ation with you in doing something that 
may cheer our old friend Mr. Moore. The 
kindness and the thoughtfulness of it is all 
with you ; and you were kind to me as 
[172] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

well as kind to him, in permitting me to 
join you. 

"... I want to thank you for 

your trouble in attempting to set Mr. 

right [referring to certain published his- 
torical mistakes concerning himself]. 

"... I honestly think my dear 
Gilder that there are things in my life and 
career that if set out, and read by the 
young men of our country, might be of 
benefit to a generation soon to have in their 
keeping the safety and the mission of our 
Nation ; but I am not certain of this, for 
I am by no means sure that it would be in 
tune with the vaudeville that attracts our 
people and wins their applause. Somehow 
I don't want to appear wearing a fur coat 
in July. 

" Mr. and all the forces about him 

have lately importuned me, in season and 
out of season, to write, say 12 autobiogra- 
phical articles, offering what seems to me 
a large sum for them ; but I have declined 
[173] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

the proposition. I went so far (for I 
softened up a bit under the suggestion of 
duty and money) to inquire how something 
would do Hke talking to another person 
for publication ; but that did not take at 
all. I don't really think I would have done 
even that, but the disapproval of merely 
a hint that the ' I ' might to an extent be 
eliminated, made It seem to me more than 
ever, that the retention of everything that 
might attract the lovers of a * snappy life ' 
was considered Important by the would-be 
pubhsher. 

" There is a circle of friends like you, 
who I hope will believe in me. I am happy 
in the conviction that they will continue 
in the faith whether an autobiography is 
written or not. I want my wife and chil- 
dren to love me now, and hereafter to 
proudly honor my memory. They will 
have my autobiography written on their 
hearts where every day they may turn the 
pages and read it. In these days what 
[174] 



^^-'^ >^v >t^^^ /^, J2^ ^^2!;;;:^ ^/y^ yi^^^.X 

AN AUroGUAPHIC LFiTTEK (SLIGHTLY KED0CE1)) BV MR CLEVELAND 
From tlie conclusion of the letter printe.l on page 174 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

else is there that is worth while to a man 
nearly sixty-eight years old? 

" Give my love to Mrs. Gilder and be- 
lieve me 

" Yours faithfully 

" Grover Cleveland " 



Cleveland's own estimate of himself 



One of the most interesting days I ever 
spent with Mr. Cleveland was the day of 
the dedication of the Grant monument. 
It was the 27th of April, 1897, in the 
month after his retirement, and at a time 
when he thought he had reason to feel dis- 
appointed at the lack of understanding 
and appreciation of his own public service. 
President McKinley was to make the ad- 
dress on the occasion, and Mr. Cleveland, 
who was just beginning his life in Prince- 
ton, had no duties to perform except to be 
present as a guest of the city. Having 
[177] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

been designated by Mayor Strong to act 
as attendant upon the ex-President, I ac- 
companied him in the parade, and wit- 
nessed the extraordinary reception ten- 
dered him by the people of the city along 
the line of the procession. The demon- 
stration was, indeed, a revelation of the 
true feeling of the great masses of the 
people for the man. I could see that he 
was very deeply touched. 

While we were alone at luncheon that 
day he talked in a tone of appreciation of 
his fellow-workers in his last administra- 
tion. In speaking of Mr. Carlisle, he said 
he was perfectly sure of his disinterested- 
ness. His very latest speech, that of the 
24th of April, he considered a new proof 
of this. He might have said to himself 
that the whirligig of time, that brings such 
strange things around, might bring some- 
thing to him. Nevertheless, he was per- 
fectly outspoken and frank. Carlisle 
might have said, " There is no necessity 
for me to add to my sound-money record." 
[178] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

Mr. Cleveland said that he only wished the 
public could have been behind the scenes 
and have heard all their talks together. 

Mr. Cleveland's mind had carried him 
back to the days of stress when the Secre- 
tary and the President were battling to- 
gether, in the interest of sound money and 
other causes dear to the President's heart ; 
and thereupon he gave utterance to the 
most memorable words of self-estimate I 
ever heard from his lips: 

" We are j ust right for each other ; he 
knows all I ought to know, and I can bear 
all we have to bear." 

CLEVELAND AND KOOSEVELT 

The relations between Cleveland and 
Roosevelt were of long standing. Mr. 
Cleveland was always very much interested 
in the younger man. They had met first 
in Albany, when Roosevelt was a leading 
young Republican reformer in the Assem- 
[179] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

bly, and Cleveland was the Democratic re- 
form Governor. ]\Ir. Cleveland told me 
that he cooperated with Mr. Roosevelt 
sometimes in the interest of good measures 
before the legislature. He spoke of hav- 
ing sent for the assemblyman to get him 
so to shape a good bill that the Governor 
would be able to sign it. 

As time went on, the two men were again 
brought into friendly official relations, the 
younger as a member of the National Civil 
Service Commission at Washington, and 
the older as President of the United States. 
After Mr. Cleveland made such wide exten- 
sions of the merit system in the Civil Serv- 
ice, during his second term, I said to him at 
Gray Gables, " Procter [the President of 
the Board] is immensely pleased with what 
you have done." " Yes," Mr. Cleveland 
answered, with a good deal of feeling, 
" but I can't help wishing Roosevelt had 
been there."^ 

1 John R. Procter, that most attractive Ken- 
tuckian, was made President of the Commission 

[180] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

As Mr. Roosevelt's career opened up, 
Mr. Cleveland continued to be deeply in- 
terested in his activities and success. He 
said to me once : " Don't make any mis- 
take; your friend Roosevelt is a good deal 
of a politician ! " When the young poli- 
tician was tragically plunged into the Pres- 
idency, Mr. Cleveland was deeply sympa- 
thetic. Mr. Roosevelt, during his first 
full day in the White House, — that is, 
the day after his arrival there, — told me 
that the best word written to him, on his 
becoming President, was from a Western 
governor; and that the kindest word said 
to him was by ex-President Cleveland, 
right there in the White House, when he 
came down from Princeton to take part in 
the funeral exercises for President McKin- 
ley. To Mrs. Cleveland, soon afterward, 
Mr. Roosevelt said that Mr. Cleveland's 
hearty words of encouragement were as if 
a senior had patted a freshman on the 

by Mr. Cleveland while Mr. Roosevelt was a 
member, and largely through his influence. 

[ 181 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

shoulder, and assured him of his success. 
The two men were of such different 
temperaments, and were so often opposed 
as to opinions and methods, that it would 
have been a miracle if they had always 
continued in accord, and if the political 
and other proceedings of the younger had 
always met with the approval of the elder. 

A DINNER AT LAURENCE HUTTON's 
A REMARKABLE SCENE 

On the night of President Woodrow 
Wilson's inauguration at Princeton, In 
1902, Laurence Hutton gave a dinner at 
his house at which were present ex-Presi- 
dent Cleveland, ex-Speaker Thomas B. 
Reed, "Mark Twain," E. C. Benedict, 
Henry Harper, Colonel Harvey, young 
Mr. Armour, Samuel Elliott of New 
York, and I. Mr. Cleveland sat at one 
end of the table, and Mr. Reed at the 
other. As we went out, there was every 
[182] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

prospect of an amusing, story-telling even- 
ing. But as the evening went on and there 
was no general talk, I thought. Well, this 
is another case of too many lions — one 
kills the other. After a while, however, 
Mr. Elliott spoke up in a " general " voice, 
asking a serious question about the labor 
situation suggested by the violent acts of 
members of trades-unions in connection 
with the great coal strike. Then there 
began a conversation on the subject in 
which all but two or three took part. 
Mark Twain's talk was partly humorous 
extravagance and partly conviction ; 
Reed's was mostly serious. In fact it was 
an illuminative discussion, some inclining 
to find reasons for the laborers, the others 
principally impressed by the outrages 
committed by them. Toward the end Mr. 
Benedict gave some interesting points in 
his own experience with workmen. 

Finally, Mr. Hutton, beginning with a 
statement that he was " a Cleveland-Reed 
Republicrat," declared that there was a 
[183] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

trustee of Princeton University present, 
and as we had heard from Mr. Reed, he 
thought we ought now to hear from Mr. 
Cleveland. The ex-President and Trus- 
tee had made only a single remark, and 
that not important, during the debate. 
While it was going on he had sat most of 
the time silent and part of the time with 
drooped eyelids, a bit sleepy perhaps, and 
no one could tell whether or not he was 
interested in the give-and-take that was go- 
ing on. Wlien Hutton tried to call him 
out, no one knew whether or not he would 
care just then and there to give his views 
on this burning subject. 

But quite suddenly Cleveland drew him- 
self up in his chair and began one of the 
most eloquent and impressive deliverances 
I have ever heard from him. I was re- 
minded of his look at his second Inaugu- 
ration. His eyes glowed with emotion ; 
his expression was most earnest. He 
spoke with the fire of intense conviction. 
He began by saying that he did not know 
[184] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

whether he had " any standing at all " in 
a debate where some had hinted at a dark 
future for the American people, possibly 
a return to monarchy. " What," he said, 
*' is to become of the influence of our uni- 
versities, our churches, our better press, 
and of the good men scattered throughout 
our community ! America has often been 
threatened, but the results, for instance, of 
the last Presidential election show that the 
people as a whole could not be deceived. 
In these labor troubles there are wrongs 
on both sides ; but have we made no ad- 
vances? Look at the situation at this 
very moment, when a Commission ap- 
pointed by the President of the United 
States is sitting to decide the points at 
issue. Is not this a sign of progress? 
Let us wait. Do not let us despair. Let 
us see what will come of this commission. 
I cannot lose faith in the ultimate right 
action of the American people." 

And more in this same strain. I could 
not help thinking this: the only man now 
[185] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

living who has been elected to the Presi- 
dency of the Republic is moved before our 
eyes to the defense of what is, in a peculiar 
sense, " his own people." 

The little assembly listened with the 
keenest attention and the most profound 
respect. A new and solemn mood fell up- 
on every one. There was nothing more to 
be said. The party broke up, and every 
one went home under an impression of 
hopefulness as to the future of our coun- 
try. 



Cleveland's feeling about Lincoln 



Mr. Cleveland's feeling about Lincoln 
grew more definitely appreciative and ad- 
miring as time went on, and as he came 
more and more to understand Lincoln's 
character. It was not Mr. Cleveland's 
habit to adopt a popular opinion without 
question, and he had not read deeply in 
the Lincoln literature when he went to 
[186] 






r 






a ^, 
■/■ r 




A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

Washington. I remember a scene in the 
White House one day when the Lincoln 
and the Cleveland countenances were 
brought opposite one another in a singular 
manner. I had brought a bronze copy of 
the Volk life-mask of Lincoln to Washing- 
ton in order to deposit it — for a com- 
mittee — in the National Museum, and was 
staying at the White House. " You are 
sure this is genuine? " the President asked, 
as usual with him in all such matters. 
Being told the history of the mask, he 
took it in both hands and studied the 
face for a long time, intently and silently, 
and then gave it back to me without a 
word. 

In September of 1906, at Cleveland's 
summer home at Tamworth, New Hamp- 
shire, I had a most Interesting talk with 
the ex-President about Lincoln. I found 
that he cherished a number of stories about 
him which he had gathered at Washington. 
He repeated these stories to me with great 
relish, especially the incident of Chase's 

[189] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

displeasure at Lincoln's reading and en- 
joyment of the comic writers of war-time. 
He delighted in Lincoln's declaration that 
his own enjo3'ment of jokes and humorous 
stories helped him to live through his 
troubles. 

Mr. Cleveland got to talking about the 
genuineness of Lincoln's devotion to the 
country. The reason, said Mr. Cleveland, 
that Lincoln was able to do his work so 
successfully was because he was absolutely 
disinterested, absolutely patriotic ; he had 
real patriotism. 

He went on talking about Lincoln with 
increasing earnestness. He referred to 
the objections of the military authorities 
to his sympathetic attitude toward indi- 
vidual delinquents, and his frequent par- 
dons. " Notwithstanding all that might 
be objectionable in these," said Cleveland, 
" what was he doing? He was fortifying 
his oun heart! And that," said he, with 
intense feeling, " that was his strength, 
his own heart ; that is a man's strength ! " 

[190] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

It is very gratifying to find a striking 
record of that increasing appreciation of 
Lincoln of which I have spoken in a 
letter written just six months before his 
death : 



" MY PASSIOXATE AMERICANISM " 



" Princeton, Dec. 28, 1907 
"... I am delighted with the 
book you sent me as a Christmas gift — 
' Lincoln in the Telegraph Office,' and I 
thank you for it from the bottom of my 
heart. I have already read enough of it 
to be impressed with what it contains of a 
new closeness to a supremely great and 
good man. This ' closeness ' grows more 
valuable to me and somehow, more — 
more — sacredly enshrined in my passion- 
ate Americanism, with every year of my 
life. 

" Faithfully your friend 

" Grover Cleveland.''* 
[191] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

" FORTIFYING HIS OWN HEART " 

Mr. Cleveland's friends have any number 
of stories about his own kindheartedness 
to both men and animals. When fishing, 
he limited the number of fish caught with 
a view to some reasonable use, and he killed 
his fish as soon as they were caught. 
When lying ill at Westland, he greatly en- 
joyed the singing of the birds in the early 
morning in the trees about the place, and 
was anxious that the cats should not be 
permitted to get at them. Once when he 
was living in New York I remember his 
worrying for days about a cat that he saw 
some boys chasing; he blamed himself for 
not getting out of the street car and de- 
fending the frightened animal. He was 
doubtless restrained from such chivalric 
descent upon the young hoodlums by re- 
flection as to the crowd and the conspicu- 
ity that would have attended the rescue. 

The Presidential family were amused by 
[192] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

the frequently grotesque begging letters 
that poured in upon them. But the num- 
bers of these apphcations, and the ab- 
surdity of many of them, did not by any 
means cause the President to disregard 
them all ; he gave attention to some ap- 
peals, indeed, that might be thought to 
have little warrant. I remember the case 
of a youth who " had the nerve " to ask 
the President to assist him financially 
through college. The young man had no 
claim at all upon ]Mr. Cleveland, but there 
was something about the letter that inter- 
ested him ; so, instead of throwing it into 
the waste-paper basket, he made careful 
inquiries and actually granted the re- 
quest. 

I found out that, at Marion, he had lent 
a neighbor some seven hundred dollars for 
what seemed a reasonable seafaring ven- 
ture, nearly all of which sum was lost. I 
do not know how many " old fann," and 
other small real estate " investments " of 
his were made simply for the purpose of 
[195] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

helping out some unfortunate owner, 
sometimes an entire stranger to the pur- 
chaser. It would be easy to multiply in- 
stances of this sort, but I will mention only 
one more case that I learned about only 
after his death. A lawyer friend told me 
about it at the time of the funeral — how, 
not a great while before, Mr. Cleveland 
sent for him and confessed that he had 
" made a fool of himself again," and want- 
ed to be helped out of the scrape. In 
other words, he had gone security for a 
perfect stranger, — to the extent of some 
five thousand dollars, — in a case where he 
thought the man had been unjustly treat- 
ed, though his beneficiary was a kind of 
man for whom Mr. Cleveland really could 
have little sympathy. Surely, all through 
his life Mr. Cleveland was " fortifying his 
own heart " with acts of kindness. No 
wonder he understood so well that trait in 
Lincoln. 



[196] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

CONVEKSATIONS WITH THE EX-PRESIDENT 
THE SPANISH WAE 

There follow records of some of the 
writer's many conversations with Mr. 
Cleveland during the last ten years of his 
life: 

Indian Harbor. Summer of 1898. — 
" Spent the night at the Benedicts' with 
the Clevelands, on their way to Gray Ga- 
bles, just after Mr. Cleveland's Lawrence- 
ville address. I was somewhat surprised 
during the evening that I could not get 
him to say much about the war with Spain. 
But later he came up to my bedroom and 
settled down for a good talk. I never saw 
him in a more solemn mood. He spoke 
like a prophet, with a burden of warning 
upon him. It made me feel that, even if 
one did not see everything exactly in the 
same light, if a man like him felt as he 
felt, with such a passion of earnestness, 
the views themselves had a tremendous 

[197] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

importance. He deplored the war-fury 
— said that it was amazing to see that the 
same clergy who, a little while ago, were 
calling for peace and arbitration and the 
confirmation of the arbitration treaty, 
were now for war, for ' killing everybody.' 
He was afraid the country would gain a 
reputation for hypocrisy in the way the 
war was brought on." 

Gray Gables. September, 1898.— ''I 
asked whether it were true that he de- 
clared when President he would not send 
a ship to Havana — ' to be blown up.' 
He said that story must have originated 
in Secretary Herbert's sajung that a single 
vessel, if sent there, might be blown out of 
the water by the guns of the fortifications ; 
and that if any were sent, in case of neces- 
sity, it would be better to be prepared to 
send more than one. As a fact, vessels 
were placed in near American ports to be 
used, not for war purposes, but for the 
[198] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

quick protection of American interests in 
Cuba. 

" I told him that General Stewart L. 
Woodford told me at the Tolstoi dinner, 
a few nights before, that, if it had not 
been for Congress, the administration, with 
himself as ambassador, could by this time 
have gained all that we now have, except 
the Philippines, without firing a shot or 
losing a single life. Mr. Cleveland said 
he thought this was true, and that he 
feared that in the historical record the 
declaration of war, occurring as it did in 
the midst of such great concessions on the 
part of Spain, would not redound alto- 
gether to the credit of our country. He 
said that when he saw that certain senators 
had called on President McKinley and had 
come away with an assurance which satis- 
fied them, to the effect that if something 
was not done in a week he would hand the 
matter over to them — he felt that all was 
up. He said that the final Spanish con- 
[199] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

cession as to the reconcentrados took away 
our humanitarian grounds of interference 
— their appropriation for reHef and invi- 
tation to us to assist in the relief meas- 
ures. 

*' The attack upon the enemy's fleet by 
Dewey was, he said, of course perfectly 
right and proper, but, after that, Dewey 
should have been ordered to join the block- 
ading squadron. He looked with alarm 
at the acquisition of island territory, and 
thought that Harmon's view as to the un- 
constitutionality of the proceeding was im- 
portant. He said that the trouble would 
be increased by the fact that these island 
populations had no traditional ties what- 
ever in relation to either our government 
or country. He thought it amazing that 
we should be reversing our system as to 
military armaments, while the Czar of Rus- 
sia himself was calling for peace and dis- 
armament. 

" He spoke with much earnestness of 
Bayard, Avhom he believed to be dying. 
[200 ] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

He said that patriotism was the very prin- 
ciple of his life. He had been somewhat 
disappointed at his attitude concerning the 
Venezuelan affair, especially as Bayard 
himself had had something to do with it 
when Secretary of State, and he had writ- 
ten to him ('from this very room'), tell- 
ing him what they were going to do. He 
finally took the matter from Ambassador 
Bayard's hands and dealt through Paunce- 
fote. But all this, he said, made no differ- 
ence in his feeling for Bayard. They, 
by tacit consent, never discussed the sub- 
ject. He became eloquent in praising 
Bayard's devotion to country. 

" He said that the arbitration treaty was 
the direct outgi'owth of the Venezuelan 
message. He thought that Pauncefote 
first suggested it, right on the heels of the 
other matter. Cleveland thought the fail- 
ure of the treaty a wicked thing." 

[Mr. Cleveland's private secretary, Mr. 
Thurber, told me that when Mr. Cleve- 
land showed him the Venezuelan Message, 

" [ 201 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

he, the secretary, remarked that it was 
pretty strong, or words to that effect. 
Whereupon Mr. Cleveland put his hand 
on Mr. Thurber's shoulder and said: 
" Thurber, this does not mean war ; it 
means arbitration." It should be remem- 
bered that the President really obtained 
delay by that message, forestalling any 
possibly rash act by Congress, and post- 
poning action till a commisssion should be 
appointed and report.] 

" In talking about the Senate, I asked 
him if the country would not be better 
governed if the functions of confirmation 
were limited. He thought so decidedly, 
and spoke of having signed a bill when 
Governor taking away the right of con- 
firmation of nominations from aldermanic 
boards. His signature was accompanied 
by a message. 



[202] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

CABINET APPOINTMENTS 

" He said there was little excuse for a 
very bad cabinet appointment, for a cabi- 
net officer was a member of the President's 
family, so to speak ; and it was generally 
understood that it was indelicate for can- 
didates to be too strenuously pushed upon 
the Executive. He said he had had very 
little trouble in this particular. In this 
connection he went over the Garland mat- 
ter, and gave me in detail his reasons for 
not believing Garland guilty of any actual 
impropriety whatever. In the circum- 
stances it would have been grossly unjust, 
he thought, for him to have asked for his 
resignation." 



[203] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

CUBA AGAIN CIVIL SERVICE REFOEM 

CAN NEVER SATISFY SPOILSMEN 

Princeton, Tyringliam, and Gray Gables, 
1899. — " Some people, he said, said to him 
that if he had remained President, there 
would have been no war with Spain. He 
thought this was not quite fair, as we did 
not know just what had gone on below 
the surface. He deprecated the war, 
though, and especially the Philippine 
fighting. 

" With regard to the civil service, poli- 
ticians used to come to him after he was 
elected and urge him to disregard the 
pledges of the party and his own personal 
pledges in this regard. He would say to 
them : ' There it is in the platform, and I 
have given my word. I would no more 
lie to the American public than to you.' 

" He added : ' If a President yields to 
the demands of the spoilsmen, he can never 
satisfy them. As between satisfying them 
[204] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

and seeing this great Government well ad- 
ministered, there ought to be no choice — 
and civil-service reform above all things 
is a relief to the Executive and a good 
thing in itself.' 

" In making his final extensions, he was, 
he said, guided by the opinion of those 
who were administering details. If any 
of them recommended extensions with a 
view of protecting incumbents, they forgot 
how freely removals could be made." 

PUTTING DOWN THE PRESIDENTIAL FOOT 

Westland, Princeton, Saturday to Tues- 
day — in 1899.—'' Sunday night I 
brought Professor Woodrow Wilson down 
to the house, wanting to have him talk with 
the President on the subject Wilson is 
thinking and writing about, — namely, 
high politics, — and the relation of states- 
manship to practical partizanship, etc. 
The professor wants to arrive at a working 
[207] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

theory — to set forth considerations which 
will make it easier for men of conscience 
to remain in touch with the machinery of 
party. Mr. Cleveland said that it was 
sometimes perplexing to draw the line ; to 
know how far one could go in yielding to 
the views of others. (He said to me once, 
referring to a contribution he had made to 
the campaign fund of 1892, that he had 
to oppose the politicians so often that he 
was always glad when there was anything 
he could conscientiously do that would 
please them.) 

" After Professor Wilson went, Cleve- 
land entered into details as to the relations 
of the President to the question of partizan 
appointments. He spoke of a certain large 
city where he had appointed a good post- 
master. The question was on the assistant 
postmaster. A tremendous effort was 
made to have him appoint the local Demo- 
cratic boss, the kind of boss, as he believed, 
who represented the most venal elements 
in both of the great parties. They sent on 
[208] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

a delegation consisting of the postmaster 
himself, and some men who were classed 
as the President's friends. The ex-gov- 
emor of the State, also a political friend, 
came, and either in that or another con- 
versation alone pressed the appointment 
upon him very hard. The President told 
him he was surprised that the ex-governor 
should give in to such a request ; the an- 
swer was that the candidate had played so 
fair in the election, had done so well, that 
although there had been no promises, they 
felt it was only just to recognize his serv- 
ices ; a good thing for the party, etc. 

" ' When the delegation had finished 
speaking, I looked out of the window a 
while, then said : " Gentlemen : Blank 
Blank will never in any circumstances be 
appointed assistant postmaster of Blank." 
Then I looked out of the window again.' 

" In his talk with the ex-governor, after 

expressing his surprise, he said that he did 

not know whether he could stand up 

against the opinion of all his friends out 

[209] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

there ; one level-headed man especially he 
would like to hear from. In a few days 
he did hear from him, and he was con- 
firmed in his opinion of the unfitness of 
the candidate." (In this case the appoint- 
ment was in the hands of the postmaster, 
as I understand, but the President could 
have called for his resignation if the post- 
master had done anything of which he dis- 
approved. ) 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1900 

Gray Gables, Saturday, September 22, 
1900, till Monday. — " Long talks about 
the campaign in progress. Constant at- 
tempts are being made to force an ex- 
pression of opinion that would assist 
Bryan. These will be unsuccessful. He 
said he had written about four confidential 
letters ; read one of the most explicit to 
me. He said there are three horns to this 
dilemma ; McKinleyism, Bryanism, and 
the Bryanization of the Democratic Party. 
[210] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

As a Democrat he thinks this last as 
great an evil as any ; he cannot think that 
the party will keep on its present road; 
believes the time will come when it will 
turn against its present leaders, who have 
led it astray, away from sound Demo- 
cratic principles. The papers had hinted 
that he had seen Olney's letter in favor 
of Bryan, that it was talked over, and, 
as it were, agreed upon before issuing; 
and that it was likely that Cleveland 
would himself come out before the elec- 
tion in a somewhat similar strain. He 
said that it was untrue ; he had seen Olney 
but once this summer. 

" I asked him about his relations with 
Bryan. I said, ' You were making a fight 
for good government — irrespective of 
any political doctrine or program. Did 
you feel that Bryan was one of the men in 
Congress whom you could count on in that 
fight?' He answered, 'Not the slight- 
est ; I remember his coming to me to get 
men into office, whom I generally found 
[211] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

to be populists. I did n't look upon him 
as a genuine Democrat.' " 

TAXING COMBINATIONS, ETC. 

Tyringliam, July 11, 1901.— ''Mr. 
Cleveland was in one of his talkative moods 
to-night, telling first about the applications 
for loans, etc., receiA'ed day by day in the 
belief that he had made three or four 
hundred thousand dollars in the recent 
Wall Street turn-over. To-day one man 
wanted to borrow the handy sum of 
$25,000 (without security except a chat- 
tel mortgage), to assist him in the oyster 
business. Mr. Cleveland looked upon 
this request as an instance of the struggle 
to make large fortunes. He thought the 
rich were rather reckless in their goings- 
on, especially as to the effect upon the 
minds of poor men. The poor man heard 
constantly about combinations involving 
billions even, and bringing millions to a 
[212] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

played on the Federal troops. Once he 
had accumulated $150 in gold, and the 
Confederates found out about it and 
cleaned him out. There was a darky there 
that was nearer to an animal than any 
human being he had ever seen. His 
speech was hardly human. Some one 
asked him how old he was, and if he was 
a voter. He said he did n't know how 
old he was, but he always voted. It was 
during the campaign of 1888, and he was 
asked who were the candidates ; he did n't 
know, but guessed he 'd find out on elec- 
tion day.' Some one pointed out the 
President, and asked him if he would vote 
for him if he ran. He looked at him 
sharply, and answered with a chuckle: 
* Oh, yes, I 'd vote for dat man, if he ran.' 
Cleveland went on to tell about the way 
that colored men in the South, no matter 
how faithful to their old masters and 
employers, would always vote against 
them, no matter what the colored men 
were promised. They would die for their 
[ 217 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

white friends, but not vote with them. 
" He said that when he first ran for the 
Presidency some of the negroes were very 
much alarmed, the rumor having spread 
that if he were elected they would be put 
back into slavery. He heard that some 
of them flocked to their former masters, 
with the feeling that if they were to be 
enslaved they would rather pick their mas- 
ters, and go back to the old places. He 
felt compelled upon this to issue a state- 
ment saying how absurd the idea was. 

MR. SHERMAN AND THE CUBANS WAS 

THE WAR JUSTIFIED.'' 

" He told about the visit to him of the 
Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs con- 
cerning the Cuban situation. Mr. Sher- 
man was a member of the Committee. 
They wanted to know all he could tell 
them as to the condition. He said that 
one thing troubled the Executive depart- 
[218] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

ment very much in the conduct of affairs 
with Cuba, and that was the things that 
were said in Congress, for of course they 
might as well be said direct to the Spanish 
government. The gentlemen seemed op- 
posed to annexation. Either then or at 
some other time the question arose as to 
whether Cuba would be less troublesome 
to us, if, perhaps, connected with Mexico. 
As to annexation, the President turned to 
Mr. Sherman and said : ' I see you are of 
your old opinion about Cuba.' ' What is 
that.'' ' said Mr. Sherman. ' You had just 
visited the island,' said Mr. Cleveland, 
' and you expressed to me your very strong 
opposition, as the result of your observa- 
tion, to its annexation to the United 
States ; you said the country was all right, 
but you did n't want the people.' 

" Mr. Cleveland spoke of the pressure 
brought upon his second administration 
by Congress about Cuba, which pressure 
was resisted by the Administration. He 
said the other day, apropos of an edi- 
[219 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

torial on certain despatches connected 
with the Cuban matter recently given to 
the pubHc, that the editor said what he 
himself had said at the time, that there 
seemed to be really no justification for the 
attack upon Spain, as she was step by step 
meeting all the demands we made to her 
with relation to Cuba." 

A DREAM 

Tyr'mgham^ July 21, 1901.— ''Mr. 
Cleveland told of a dream he had just had : 
that, ' without any preliminaries,' he was 
walking up-stairs and through the hall and 
offices of the White House to his desk 
there once more. He saw the different old 
clerks at their desks, and thought to him- 
self, ' Well, this is queer, that I should be 
taking this thing up again.' When he got 
to the inner office, * There was Thurber 
[his last private secretary] dancing a war- 
dance ! ' 

[220] 




Fpnti a l>!lutL.^r.lllll, tl>|iyi|Lli: \'W. \>\ H.^l^^ I..I 

Mi;. CLEVELAND IN lOO.T 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

" He seemed never to have had this 
dream before. I told him afterward that 
I constantly went back in my dreams to 
former employments, and asked him if he 
ever did this, and he said no. He also 
said that he never dreamed of what he 
actually was thinking about, evidently 
meaning that he was not thinking about 
going back to the White House." 

Westland, Sunday, December, 1901. — 
" I stopped at Princeton on the way from 
Bordentown to New York. Found Mr. 
Cleveland still in bed, and somewhat weak 
after his attack of pneumonia. I spent 
some time with him in the evening, and 
again in the morning before taking the 
train. His lung trouble was a thing of 
the past, except in its effects. He was 
being troubled a bit with what was now, 
he said, promoted to be rheumatic gout, 
having formerly been called simple rheu- 
matism. He said he supposed his some- 
what weak condition exposed him to 
it, but that it had not taken hold very 
" [ 223 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

viciously. His complexion was good, and 
he seemed bright and cheerful; evidently 
was doing a good deal of book-reading. 
He seemed a shorn Samson, a giant lying 
helpless, reduced to the gentle ministries 
of the sick-room. 

" He had noticed the death of an old 
Buffalo acquaintance, and he ran through 
his career for us. The event reminded 
him of his intimate association with this 
man in about the year 1856; they were 
thrown together a good deal, and both at 
that time made choice as to their respective 
national politics. His friend became a 
Republican, and he chose the Democratic 
party because it seemed to him to represent 
greater solidity and conservatism. He 
was, he said, repelled by the Fremont can- 
didacy, which struck him as having a good 
deal of fuss and feathers about it. This 
seemed to me very characteristic." 



[224] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

THE PANAMA AFFAIR A MESSAGE 

TO THE PRESIDENT 

New YorJc, February, 1904-. — " Mr. 
Cleveland called in the afternoon on the 
way from Princeton after the Whitney 
funeral. Talked about the Panama Canal 
matter and the Philippines. He said to 
Root, whom he met at the funeral, that 
he did not want to talk about it, but just 
to send word to President Roosevelt that 
he wished he would do something for 
Colombia. Cleveland said to me that he 
hoped the President would do this. ' I 
would feel better,' he said, ' as a citizen ; 
and you can tell how others feel by the 
way you feel yourself. Of course this 
would not undo any wrong that might 
have been done, but it would make us feel 
better.' It struck me as exceptional, and 
as a mark of Cleveland's simplicity and 
largeness of nature, that at the pressing 
moment, when his party was seeking for 
[ 225 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

issues and trying to discredit President 
Roosevelt, his thought was not on partizan 
advantage, but on the honor of the coun- 
try. Instead of cherishing his suggestion 
as a partizan asset, he wants the right 
thing done, and done at once. I asked 
him if the pohticians were bothering him 
just now (about the nomination, I 
meant), and he said: 'Not much.'" 

THE GREATEST GRIEF OF HIS LAST 
ADMINISTRATION 

Westland, sometime after Roosevelt's 
election. — " Mr. Cleveland talked about 
the arbitration treaties which the Senate 
had amended, and the Senate in general. 
He said that even if the Senate believed it 
necessary to make some change, it should 
have been done in a more gracious way. 
He referred to the failure of the Olney- 
Pauncefote treaty in his second term as 
the greatest failure and grief of that ad- 
[226] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

ministration. He spoke of the details of 
its framing; at first there were references 
apparently up to everybody except God, 
but that feature was modified. As finally 
formed, the treaty should have passed ; he 
was deeply moved in talking about it. 

" I said that nevertheless it was looked 
upon as the beginning of the new move- 
ment for arbitration, and his efforts for it 
were appreciated historically ; and as for 
actually passing it, see even Roosevelt's 
difficulty, with his great majority and 
prestige. 

COUTELYOU 

** I told him I had seen Cortelyou since 
the election, and that he told me he had 
read Mr. Cleveland's letter about him and 
had been very much touched by it. That 
his idea in going in as Chairman was to 
try to make things better, and that the 
first thing he had done was to go over the 
[227] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

' literature ' of the campaign committee 
and see that there were no reflections on 
Mr. Cleveland. He thought Mr. Cleve- 
land should have known that it was his 
object to improve methods. 

" Mr. Cleveland was interested, and 
said, ' Now, why was n't the matter put 
in that light before the public .'' ' 

" As to pledges by campaign committees, 
he said he had never been embarrassed by 
them in any of his campaigns. The only 
case of suspicion was one (which he men- 
tioned) in his third Presidential campaign. 
He said possibly the manager had said 
something to one man about a foreign ap- 
pointment, though he could never find out 
that it was so. But leaving that out, he 
said nothing done during a campaign by 
the managers ever embarrassed him." 



[228] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

" A CONSECRATION FROM THE PEOPLE " 

Westland, 1901.— ''I talked to him 
about the tremendous impression the scene 
of inauguration made upon me — I having 
been present at the time he took the oath 
the second time. He said that it seemed 
to him that a President on the occasion of 
his inauguration got a ' consecration from 
the people.' 

" He was just recovering from a brief 
illness. He lay on his cot in his own little 
writing-room up-stairs, and talked about 
peace among the nations, of his own youth, 
and of the solemn moment of the Presiden- 
tial oath, with great intensity and feel- 
ing." 



[229] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

GOVERNMENT DEPOSITS " NOT ANOTHER 

CENT " 

Time of Financial Panic. — " Talk with 
Grover Cleveland on ferry, Mrs. Cleve- 
land and the trained nurse along. He was 
walking with a cane. He spoke of the 
dangers of the present system of govern- 
ment deposits in times of stringency. As 
the custom existed, in default of a better 
plan, he supposed, they had to keep it up. 
In similar circumstances he had author- 
ized Fairchild to deposit as far as twenty 
millions. When it got to fifty, he said 
to him : ' Not another cent.' He felt that 
when the Government might need the 
money and should have to withdraw it, 
the Government would be blamed for the 
withdrawal. He spoke with admiration 
of Morgan's quiet, masterly way of com- 
ing to the rescue in the present crisis. He 
said he did not see much of him at the 
time of the bond issue, in his Presidency, 
[230] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

but that he had ' got a liking for him.' 
Mr. Cleveland was very sympathetic with 
the wage-earners, who would suffer in the 
hard times." 

THE BAIT STORY 

Tamworth, September, 1906. — " Out 
with Mr. Cleveland looking over the site 
for a dam for a proposed little lake on the 
place, In sight of the house, and laying out 
lines for low, curving walls by the carriage 
drive. He wanted the drive ample, but not 
so wide as to look like a main road. He 
altered a curve somewhat, after the stones 
had been laid. When appealed to, I said : 
' If you see it wrong now, you will later ; 
so you had better change it now.' 

" Cleveland was once talking with Sen- 
ator Voorhees about a renomination (for 
a second term), and took the ground that 
he was ' willing to sow and to let others 
reap.' ' Oh, no,' said Voorhees, ' you must 
[233] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

reap as well as sow.' This in connection 
with the advance of opinion and practice 
in many ways on lines which he had ad- 
vocated when President. 

" He said some of the men who talked 
that way were really meeting to confer 
upon obtaining some other candidate. 

" He told me the story of the old darky 
who risked his life when out fishing to 
save a small darky. He was asked 
whether the boy was his own. ' Oh, no, 
sah ; he not my son.' ' Well, was he some 
relative that you risked your life for 
him,'*' 'No, sah; he no relative; no, 
sah.' * Then why did you plunge in in 
that reckless way and fetch him out.''' 
' Well, sah, the fact is, sah, that that boy 
had the bait.' 

TARIFF AND WARM WEATHER 



" Cleveland fell into reminiscences about 
his second term. He thought that the 
[234] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

Presidential term should be lengthened or 
that the prejudice against a third term 
should be removed. He repeated what he 
had said before — that at the beginning of 
the first term there was a long session of 
Congress, but the President was new, and 
did not know the ropes thoroughly — did 
not know upon whom he could rely. In 
the next long session Congressmen wanted 
to get away from Washington to ' look 
after their fences.' He said he could have 
got a decenter tariff bill through if Con- 
gressmen had been willing to stay in 
Washington as the wanu weather came on. 
They could not be held; they would go 
back to their districts. W. L. Wilson him- 
self was handicapped by the condition of 
his health. He went into detail as to con- 
versations with Gorman. He tried to get 
hold of Brice and Gorman. Brice came, 
and while he talked pleasantly enough, 
being an interesting man, he would say 
nothing decisive about the bill, except that 
Gorman had gone out of town, it being 
[235] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

Saturday, and that Cleveland had better 
write to Gorman and ask him to call. He 
hated to do so, would prefer an oral mes- 
sage, but thinking he should omit no effort 
in behalf of the measure, he did write, 
asking him, if he happened to be in town 
Sunday, to call at any time convenient to 
him, or else on Monday morning as early 
as possible. When he called, on Monday, 
Cleveland asked him if he could not help the 
bill along. Gorman said that Senator Vi- 
las's motion in caucus in favor of putting 
coal and iron on the free list might stand in 
the way of the passage of any bill at all. 
Cleveland said this was Vilas's own affair. 
Cleveland asked Gorman whether there 
would be much more talking. He said 
there would be. ' Do you expect to 
speak.'' ' Yes, he thought he would have 
something to say. In fact, he did speak, 
and took strong ground against the Ad- 
ministration's position, accusing the Presi- 
dent of action which would break up the 
Democratic party. Cleveland was told 
[236] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

the points of the speech, there being much 
talk about it; but refrained from reading 
it. He denounced Gorman strongly for 
his action in crippling the bill. He 
thought it was outrageous conduct. 

A CONFEDERATE IN THE CABINET 

" He talked about Secretary Herbert's 
good feeling and cooperation as a cabinet 
officer. He had said to Herbert once : * I 
put you in here on account, among other 
things, of your being an old, wounded 
Confederate officer, but thinking I might 
have differences with you on some points 
owing to this very fact ; but we have no 
trouble at all in such matters: in fact, the 
representative in the cabinet of the Young 
South, Hoke Smith, seems to be more pro- 
nounced than the representative of the 
Old.' " 



[237] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

THE DANGER FROM CRANKS 

" Mr. Cleveland got to talking about 
the danger from cranks. His neighbors 
near Woodley, his out-of-town Washing- 
ton residence, suggested, without his 
knowledge, that some one should follow 
behind him, by way of protection, when 
he drove out to his country liome. He 
found it out by accident. He did not like 
it, but did nothing to prevent it. He him- 
self never thought of danger. He said, 
however, that he thought that insane per- 
sons should be looked after, and re- 
strained, according to the degree of in- 
sanity and the danger of their doing harm. 
He told of a man who got in to see him 
on the pretext of talking about Mormon- 
ism, and then began to talk in a crazy 
way on the whole sex question. Later this 
man was confined, but was afterwards 
released. He came to see him in Prince- 
ton, and was treated with kindness. 
[238] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

NOT ANXIOUS FOR HIS FIRST PRESI- 
DENTIAL NOMINATION 

" He spoke of his first nomination for 
the Presidency. One reason, he said, that 
Manning succeeded in nominating his 
candidate was, perhaps, because the can- 
didate was not particularly anxious him- 
self for the nomination. While Governor, 
and at a time when his name was being 
connected with the nomination, he sent 
for Manning and said he thought it would 
be better to drop the matter. He was in- 
terested in his work as Governor, had be- 
gun to get hold of it, and was satisfied to 
serve the state of New York. INIanning 
said : ' Oh, don't do that ! Don't make 
confusion just now! At least, let it drift 
along till the Convention meets, and then 
we can see what Is best to be done.' 

" Immediately after this conversation, 
he wrote to Manning In the same vein. 
He did not care to give up his office as 
[239] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

Governor and undertake the Presidency, 
though of course the opinion of one man 
might not be so valuable as that of a party. 
At any rate, he would not for a moment 
consent to the use of his name as Vice- 
President. This letter he had often spoken 
of, but he had no copy of it, and Manning 
was in the habit of destroying all his let- 
ters. Last year, however, one of Cleve- 
land's sisters came East to visit the family, 
and said one day : * Grove, I have some 
papers that I think I will give back to 
you. You gave them to me at Albany 
when you were Governor, and told me to 
take good care of them.' She did send 
them to him, and there were the original 
drafts of three important letters, including 
the INIanning letter. He said he was sur- 
prised to find how well he had remembered 
its history." 

Westland, June 27, 1907.—'' Went to 
Princeton to see Mr. Cleveland, who had 
had a serious attack. It was curious to 
[240] 




i.i.i\ Li.;,ui. v\ ILLIAM E. i;l'.s.-5i;ll a.^ .■5r<jia-.MAN 

Mr. F. G. Websteris at the left. Photograph taken by Mr. Harry Duttoii, 

at Owl s Nest Camp. <m .leiiknis Pond, near 

Falmouth, Massucluisetts 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

see him at last submissive to a trained 
nurse. The attack was over and he was 
now kept in bed only by gout. He said 
that his last attack was a pretty bad ' twist.' 
I asked him about the stories of the night 
he was last nominated for the Presidency, 
when Governor Russell, Jefferson, and 
some of the Jefferson boys were with him. 
He smiled when I spoke of his suddenly 
remembering that he had not dried his 
fishing-lines. He spoke of the wonderful 
beauty of the dawn, which they went out 
to see. His tone was serious and awed in 
speaking of this. He brought up the sub- 
ject of Stewart's new book, ' Partners of 
Providence,' which he had read with the 
greatest pleasure. He smiled reminis- 
cently in speaking of it." 



'3 [ 243 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

FAMILIAR LETTERS ON MANY THEMES 

Some characteristic extracts from Mr. 
Cleveland's correspondence are now given 
with their dates. 

" Oct. 20, 1891 

" Mr. Simmons from the Times wants 
to get up a Marion ' fish story,' and I want 
you, if it won't interrupt you too much, to 
add a little of your veracity to what I 
mean to furnish him." 

" June 11, 1897 
" I shall look for you Wednesday morn- 
ing and I mean to ask Prof. West to-mor- 
row if you won't be obliged to wear your 
toggery too. The fox that lost his tail 
tried to make all the other foxes believe 
that short tails were the fashion. 

" I thank you for the time you spent 
with me on Thursday." 



[244] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

A COMMON PLANE OF BROTHEEHOOD. 

" Westland, Princeton, New Jersey. 

"Nov. 20, 1897 

" I have just read something which was 
sent me by its author which I enclose to- 
gether with the letter that accompanied it. 
Your thoughts have probably been so much 
in the same direction that you may not be 
as much interested as I was ; but to my 
mind the paper presents the utility of art 
and culture in a new and most useful way. 
What we need in this country is reconcil- 
iation and some common plane of brother- 
hood between the rich and poor. 

" The North American Review wants 
me to write an article on the political out- 
look or something like that, but after 
pretty full consideration I am nearly at 
the point of declination. I have not con- 
sulted you about it because I have supposed 
the Century would not want anything 
of that sort from me in any event. I have 
[24-5] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

about made up my mind that just now no 
very great number of my fellow citizens 
care to hear or read what I might say or 
write. If I can ever do any more good in 
behalf of my countrymen, I do not think 
the time is now. 

"... The * young fellow ' is 
asleep up-stairs. I think as you say, 
that we struck the name [Richard] pretty 
nearly right ' Grandfather or no Grand- 
father.' There are others." 

*' Westland, Princeton, New Jersey. 

" Mai/ 23, 1898 
" Your fish story is all right. The 
drawing you send me is conclusive. So is 
the fact that you have eaten the fish. Cer- 
tainly a fish could neither be laid on a 
paper and its outline traced, nor be eaten 
unless it was caught. And then too I am 
a fisherman and never doubt a fish story 
that another fisherman tells." 



[246] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

A " BUSINESS PRESIDENCY " THAT CAME 
TO NOTHING 

" Westland, Princeton, New Jersey. 
" Oct. 27, 1899 
" I hardly know what to say in reply to 
your kind letter. Your friend speaks of a 
business Presidency as I understand. I 
have lately declined an offer of such a posi- 
tion to which was attached a very large 
salary, because I did not think I could do 
all the situation demanded and make the 
project a success. I am afraid I should 
come to the same conclusion in considering 
another proposition. I am not happy in 
the thought that sometimes crowds into 
my mind, leading to the fear that my 
working days are over; though I know 
that in every way limitations hamper me. 
Yet I also know I ought to earn something 
if I can ; and I am not sure that I am 
justified in drifting the rest of my life. I 
wonder if I might not have just a little 
[249] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

« 

hint of the kind of position your friend 
has in mind, before I positively say I can- 
not undertake it. . . . 

" I am so sure that the best thing I can 
do at present is to keep still, that I am 
sorry almost that I consented to talk to the 
college boys." 

" Princeton May 27, 1901 
" I am glad to learn that the new boat 
floats in the ice pond ; but do you consider 
it to be an open question whether it will 
float in a fish pond with me in it — the 
boat not the pond? " 

" Princeton, Mch m, 1902 
** . . . Don't forget at any time 
— whatever you do — that ' good men are 
scarce.' 

" As for myself — the scarcity of good 
men being entirely irrelevant — I shall, on 
my own account, and because I am led to 
believe it is desired by my wife and chil- 
dren, live as long as I can. To this end, 
[250 ] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

I intend to start in a few days on a trip to 
Florida, in the hope that warm weather 
will force the miserable thing that has 
held me so long, to let go its grip. Mrs. 
Cleveland will go with me and, after stay- 
ing a week or so, will return — leaving me 
there. This movement does not in any of 
its phases indicate anything serious, but 
rather a tendency on the part of weak 
human nature to excuse loaferism by im- 
pressing into its service a hint of impaired 
health. The days are near at hand when 
the trout in your new pond will be looking 
for you; and you won't be there to meet 
their expectations — and haply your own. 
I wish I could hope to ' blunder away ' at 
them myself. 

" With us there is occasionally a slight 
intimation the Spring will come — some- 
time — though I have not much faith in 
its innuendoes. I see, however, as I write, 
eight children, happy in self-delusion, 
playing on our grounds." 

[251] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

CRITICISM OF THE SENATE 

*' Gray Gables. Buzzards Bay. 
" Massachusetts, July 27, 1902 

" I do riot recall the incident Mr. Nel- 
son refers to — that is in just the way he 
puts it. 

" I made a nomination once in New Jer- 
sey which caused McPherson to give me 
notice that he would hereafter make no 
recommendations for appointment in his 
State — to which I replied that I would 
get along without that assistance. I know- 
ingly and deliberately sent two nomina- 
tions to the Senate very much against the 
wishes of both the Senators from Missouri. 
Both gave out that they would thereafter 
in no way indicate to me any wish con- 
cerning appointments in their State. I 
never saw Senator Vest in the White House 
afterwards. Senator Cockerell came once 
at my request and in the course of the 
conversation gave me the same notice that 
[252] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

Senator McPherson had and got the same 
answer. I may have said at some time 
the thing referred to about losing a 
State, &c., but I am quite certain I never 
said it to the Senator of the State in ques- 
tion. I am anxious to have Mr. Nelson's 
article a bold and pungent one. He can- 
not make it too severe. Of all things tlmt 
can be imagined as absurd and inconsistent 
with the strong and proper operation of 
our Government, the Senate as at present, 
and for years past, organized, reaches the 
extreme, 

" I wrote an article for the Saturday 
Evening Post (Philadelphia) which ap- 
peared sometime in April last entitled 
' The President and His Patronage,' which 
I hope Mr. Nelson has seen. It might 
give him a hint or two. 

" If an article is to appear in the Cen- 
tury intending to inform our people of 
Senatorial abuses, it ought to be so thor- 
ough as to leave nothing further to be said. 
The combination among the members of 
[253] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

that body to oppose any Presidential nomi- 
nation distasteful to the Senators of a 
State, is not put any too strong by Mr. 
Nelson and can be abundantly established 
by instances." ^ 



" HOME SURROUNDINGS " 



" Gray Gables. Buzzards Bay. 
" Massachusetts, July ^, 1903 
" I read your John Wesley poem with 
great delight, and I thank you for sending 
it to me. You remember the story of the 
man who, after hearing Webster speak, 
put the climax on his praise of the grand 
effort, by exclaiming : ' Why I understood 
every word of it.' I not only understood 
but felt every word of your poem. I 
thank God that I have had an experience 
and home surroundings which make me 

1 See " The Overshadowing Senate," by Henry 
Loorais Nelson, The Century for February, 
1903. 

[254] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

more sensitive, as the years pass, to the 
things you have so touchingly defined." 

" MORE CLEVELAND LUCK ! " 

''Princeton, March 21, 1904. 

" I__ain feeling very much gratified by 
thTturn pohtical affairs are taking — in a 
personal, selfish sense. I am quite sure I 
am to be eliminated by the course of events 
and without volition or action of my own. 

" More Cleveland luck ! " 

♦' Tamworth, N. H., July 30, 1905 

"We arrived at home safely early 

Thursday afternoon. Jefferson and La- 

mont! who next? As Charley Goodyear 

d at Millbrook: 'They are all leaving 



sai 
us.' » 



" Princeton, Jan. '2, 1906 
" I received your letter this morning. 
I would be provoked with you for getting 
[255] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

sick again and subjecting yourself to an- 
other term of house-imprisonment if it 
were not for the fact that I myself entered 
upon a like line of conduct on Christmas 
morning, and persisted until I saw a new 
light a day or two ago. I am now fully 
convinced that a real sensible man may 
sometimes be overtaken by sickness ; but I 
am as fully determined that at a time like 
this, when good men are so dreadfully 
scarce, it behooves you and me to look 
out." 



" THE HEIGHTS OF SIXTY-NINE " 



" Stuart, March 18, 1906 
" From the heights of sixty-nine, I write 
to assure you that this is a happy day in 
my life, and to tell you how happy I am 
that you have made it so — more by your 
own loving message of congratulation 
than by those you have inspired. I have 
been so deeply impressed by it all, that I 
[256] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

have had many struggles between smiles 
and tears as I read the words of affection 
and praise that have met me at the gate of 
entrance to another year. Somehow I am 
wondering why all this should be, since I 
have left many things undone I ought to 
have done in the realm of friendship, and 
since in the work of public life and effort, 
God has never failed to clearly make 
known to me the path of duty. And still 
it is in human nature for one to hug the 
praise of his fellows and the affection of 
friends, to his bosom as his earned posses- 
sions. I am no better than this ; but I 
shall trust you to acquit me of affectation 
when I say to you that in to-day's mood 
there comes the regret that the time is so 
shortened within which I can make fur- 
ther payment to the people that have hon- 
ored and trusted me, and can make amends 
for neglected friendships. 

" You speak in your note to Doctor 
Bryant of the mode of acknowledging the 
congratulations that I have received. 
[259] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

There are more than fifty of them. A 
majority at least I want to acknowledge 
entirely in my own way and in my own 
hand. Will it not do for me to write re- 
plies to as many as possible while here 
(though it will have to be done under 
difficulties) and postpone the others until 
I return to Princeton probably the 10th 
of April or thereabouts? Is it your prop- 
osition to send to each a co'py of a reply I 
shall write without my signature, or to 
return copies here for me to sign after 
they are made under your direction? 

" It 's not a very convenient place to 
write, but I believe I could dispose of a 
number of replies if it will do to defer the 
remainder to my return." 

As a matter of fact Mr. Cleveland 
finally insisted upon acknowledging all 
these letters with his own hand. 



[260] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

" THE CALDWELL, INCIDENT," 

A small, self-constituted committee, 
some time before Mr. Cleveland's seventieth 
birthday, began making arrangements for 
a public celebration of that event. His 
portrait was to be painted for the occasion. 
When the time came to obtain his con- 
sent, he firmly declared that he could not 
" lend " his " countenance " to the affair, 
and the plan had to be relinquished. 
However, on the birthday, Professor 
West (at his initiation), with President 
John H. Finley and myself, placed a 
bronze commemorative tablet (which a 
small group had subscribed for) In the 
room in which Mr. Cleveland was born. 

" Princeton, March 25, 1907 

" It was a complete misfit — a travesty 

on things as they should be — that I should 

be disporting in balmy air and all creature 

comforts, while you cold, hungry and mis- 

[261] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

erably forlorn, were finding your way to 
Caldwell, for the purpose of marking the 
time and place of my birth. You did 
what you ought not to have done. There 
is no process of calculation by which it can 
be made to appear a profitable investment 
for you. And yet when men reach the 
age of seventy I believe their mental move- 
ments grow self-centred to such an extent, 
that, consciously or unconsciously, they 
sort of believe their gratitude to be in 
some measure compensating to those who 
know them or suffer discomforts on their 
behalf. 

" I am so near to tliis memorable age of 
seventy, that I cannot tell at this moment 
how much I am under the influence of 
this idea. But my dear friend, one thing 
I know: Your kindnesses have been so 
many, and have extended through so many 
years, that the pages set apart for their 
record are full ; and I long ago abandoned 
all hope of redeeming the one-sidedness of 
the account. 

[262] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

" You must I think see how impossible 
it is for me to do more than to say to you, 
that I am profoundly moved by the con- 
ception of the Caldwell incident and by 
the beauty of its completed manifestation." 

CLEVELAND AND ROOSEVELT AGAIN 

When writing about the relations be- 
tween Cleveland and Roosevelt on an ear- 
lier page, I ought to have mentioned an 
incident of their acquaintance. One 
evening early in Roosevelt's Presidency 
Mr. and Mrs. Procter of Kentucky and 
Mrs. Gilder and I were at dinner at the 
White House. Before leaving the East 
Room for the state dining-room Mr. 
Procter (who was formerly Roosevelt's 
chief, having been president of the Civil 
Service Commission) said to me: "Do 
you remember that the first time Roose- 
velt dined in this house it was when 
he and I and our wives were invited by 
'"^ [ 263 ] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

the Clevclands to meet you and Mrs. 
Gilder?" I said: "I remember the din- 
ner, but I would n't repeat that without 
making sure from the President himself." 
Pretty soon I saw Procter and the Presi- 
dent and Mrs. Gilder with their heads 
together, and coming up I heard the 
President say : " Yes, that 's a fact ; that 
was the first time I ever dined in the 
White House. I had lunched here, but 
President Harrison never asked me here 
to dinner." So it was a President of the 
opposite party who first had the future 
President, Roosevelt, to dine with him in 
the house he was himself so soon to 
occupy. The incident illustrates both 
Mr. Cleveland's attitude toward civil 
service reform, and toward Mr. Roosevelt 
personally. 



[264] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

Cleveland's humorous side 

As the reader has seen, I sometimes jot- 
ted down Mr. Cleveland's sayings, trying 
to keep a little of the flavor of his talk. I 
did this because I knew that he was neg- 
lecting his own record, and it seemed a 
pity, for his sake, to let so many interest- 
ing incidents, and so many ilhiminating 
phrases, pass into oblivion. But I was not 
willing to spoil a valued intercourse by 
getting into an anxious state of mind 
about it, as would have been the case if I 
had tried persistently to follow up his 
conversation with notes. 

So this " Record of Friendship " is nec- 
essarily brief, though I hope not without 
use in presenting some of the characteris- 
tics of the man to the minds of those who 
have desired a nearer acquaintance with an 
important and little known personality. 
Indeed, I may say here that I am extremely 
gratified at the reception given this " Rec- 
[265] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

ord," as indicated by the comments of the 
press and by letters and word of mouth. 
My chief object in publication seems to 
have been already largely accomplished. 

I wish I could give a better idea of the 
President's humorous side. His sister, 
Mrs. Yeomans, very kindly lets me print 
her account, in a letter to me, of a slight 
but indicative incident of his boyhood: 

In the fifties the N. Y. State Fair was held 
aternately in various cities — before perma- 
nent grounds and buildings were placed at 
Syracuse. Utica was the place selected the 
year that Grover was in school, and our 
family resided in Clinton, which was but 
eight miles from Utica. Uncle Lewis Allen 
was then a breeder of Short Horn Cattle and 
much interested in the Exhibit of stock, and 
made daily trips from our house during Fair 
week, always inviting some of the family to 
accompany him. Grover was pleased with 
the animal shows and went from one group 
to another examining them critically but mak- 
ing no comments. A group of young don- 
keys with greatly accentuated ears seemed 
[266] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

to fascinate him, and after observing them 
for some time he inquired their age, and 
was told they were but six months old. 
Quite incredulously, but without a smile, he 
asked, " Are the ears the same age ? " 

A shout of laughter from the bystanders 
followed him, as he sauntered indifferently 
away; and a droll look accompanied his re- 
cital when he told us, in a nonchalant way, 
of the incident on his return home. I was 
so much younger than my brother, and had 
such a respect for his standing and influence 
among the flock of children to which I be- 
longed, that he became a hero to me at an 
early age, and whatever he did was more or 
less remarkable in my eyes. I was con- 
vulsed with laughter or dissolved in tears 
according to his mood, so that when I read 
that he was a man utterly without humor I 
hardly recognized him. 

There are innumerable stories of Mr. 
Cleveland's amusing sayings, one of the 
best known being his remark to his friend 
Professor John H. Finley, when Mr. Fin- 
ley told him that there was water in the 

[2G7] 



GROVER CLEVELAND: 

cellar of the house which ho rented from 
the ex-President in Princeton. To which 
the landlord promptly replied: "What 
did you expect? Champagne? " 

LOOKING BACK 

In his conversation he had an endless 
store of humorous and serious recollec- 
tions. As the years were added, without 
losing his natural dignified reticence and 
reserve, he allowed himself greater free- 
dom in the expression of his deeper feel- 
ings. To the last he kept his keen interest 
in public affairs, and never lost the fire of 
his patriotism. lie felt that his lately 
assumed life-insurance responsibilities and 
duties were only another line of public 
service to be performed with the old scru- 
pulous detail. He was always hoping 
that his party would resume its active use- 
fulness in government. He said of its 
leaders, " They have let the other side 
[268] 



A RECORD OF FRIENDSHIP 

steal their sound-money issue, and if they 
are not careful, they will let them steal 
the tariff issue, too ! " 

It was very touching, for those who were 
near him, to see him endure the heavy 
strain of his executive career, then pass 
through a period, in his final retirement, 
when he was misunderstood and slighted; 
then emerge into an atmosphere of public 
appreciation and regard, enjoying, in his 
later years, a sort of posthumous recogni- 
tion, hinting at the fair judgments and 
honoring verdicts of history. There were 
some personal incidents of the afternoon 
Memorial meeting of March last which 
were overlooked by many, but which il- 
lustrated what was in the mind of some 
present, who had declared, in remember- 
ing gratitude, that Cleveland had been " a 
noble eneni}'." 

It has come to this, that his fellow coun- 
trymen in general, even those that dissent 
from his political opinions, recognize in 
Grover Cleveland a man who, being mortal, 
[269] 



GROVER CLEVELAND 

was not without fault and limitation, yet 
who stands preeminent for unfeigned pur- 
ity of intention, for singular frankness, 
for scrupulous and unusual honesty, for 
faithfulness to duty, for resolution, for 
courage, and, above all, for absorbing, 
dominating patriotism. It is not strange 
that almost the last words that were heard 
to fall from his lips were these: 



" I HAVE TRIED SO HARB TO DO RIGHT." 



^ 



THE END 



[ 270 ] 



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